Red Letter Days
by Captain Zippy
Summary: Private Schaeffer just wants to do what's right and get out of the marines as soon as possible, but he soon finds himself caught up in the beginning of a massive war, will he survive?
1. Chapter 1: September Sun

**Chapter One: September Sun**

_Epsilon Indi System_

_ UN colony: Second Base_

_ Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_

_ En route to 65th Marine Regiment, 4th battalion, Bravo Company_

The Warthog was bumpy; it made Schaeffer's stomach turn and twist inside of his gut. He was used to the nice urban sprawl of Skopje with her finely paved roads, and highways. Second Base only had two moderately sized cities and none of them were anywhere near Skopje's sprawling urbanized areas. He licked the finger of his glove from pure instinct and flipped the page; he had picked up the romance novel Lovers in the Sunset in the bookstore on base before he shipped and he was finding the deep characters and drama interesting.

A few other marines were in the back seat of the vehicle with him, most minding their own business while two privates laughed with each other; they had all been transferred to some unit or another that was in need of a replacement.

The insurrection hadn't been prevalent on Second Base since almost twenty years after its founding in 2480 but it had recently began to spike with various rebels retreating from destroyed strongholds on neighboring planets due to some big op that the UNSC had committed to.

Still, the casualty rate on Second Base was still amazingly minuscule for the number of men stationed there; the colony was simply too useless for either the UNSC or the rebels to have any plans with it. There weren't enough minerals to make decent sized factories without importing goods; there were no anomalies so no science stations and on top of that the people weren't very loyal to the UNSC so it wasn't a good area for large scale military facilities.

The only export of the colony was the odd fauna called rockfruit that grew on the rocks, and rugged yet cute farm boy characters for crappy movies back on Earth; though Harvest led the export in that.

The Warthog jumped again and he nearly dropped his book from the pothole; the road had not been worked on for years having obviously been ignored by maintenance crews. The only things to the sides of it were the rugged outdoors, rocks and a distant forest. On a far off mountain range, he saw a few skyscrapers from the colonies capital city; but they were like toys compared to the colossal mega-structures that filled Skopje, they only served to give him a sense of home sickness.

Glancing back down to the page as he sighed, he did have a PDA as they were so common now a days; but even with the sudden prevalence of electronics in the 21st century and the expansion ever since, paper had never truly died. It certainly was no more near as popular now, he was in fact amazed his base had an entire book store; but there was always an allure to them that always had him coming back.

It took another hour until they started entering the settlement. The military base was the only real thing in the far off town, the only reason it was built was to bottle off any movement across the area in the case of attack. Before he knew it, they were driving past the barbed wire fence and into the base proper; it was far smaller than Kenny's Gorge; the main training facility on Skopje, and there was very little movement.

The driver pulled him up in front of a barracks before telling them to get out. The marines all grabbed their rucksacks and rifles and slid out the back of the 'Hog, a few exchanging goodbyes. Schaeffer slid his PDA from his bag and checked where he was supposed to go one more time, satisfied that he knew where to go; he walked into the barracks.

The hallway was large, and after some stumbling around and constantly asking for directions; he found himself in front of a door to a planning center, the door slid open and Schaeffer saw a spacious room; lockers off to a side and a standard issue TACMAP sitting in the center of a lowered portion of the room. The TACMAP was old he saw, a bit of rust showing up at the bottom; from what he read in a book once, he knew it was forty years old at best. There were small rooms that joined into the main one with more lockers inside, he saw at least twenty marines in various states of undress milling around there.

There were four men around the table, a captain, first lieutenant and two sergeants he observed. Men were moving around the room, grabbing things from lockers, sliding on some last pieces of gear or chatting to the side.

The lieutenant glanced up and said something to the captain, who also glanced over, nodded, and then went back to his map. The lieutenant patted one of the sergeants on the back who sighed and walked over to him.

"Oi! New guy looking stupid, over here," he said, snapping his fingers and walking over to the lockers at the side of the wall. "Stuff your shit in one of these and get ready to shoot people, kapeesh?" Schaeffer was amazingly confused by the sudden directions and his hands seemed to turn to lead as he tried to get his pack off and into the locker. The sergeant tapped his foot impatiently, glancing over; he saw the man with the odd inner colony accent's last name was Gaffer.

Schaeffer shoved his things into the locker, his rifle slung behind his back. Once he sloppily pushed them all in, he attempted to close the metal door only for the bag to fall out; grunting from frustration, he leaned over and tried again.

"God damned newbies, sicken me, all of you sicken me," he snarled as he tried to get the bag inside the locker again, Schaeffer nearly asked him what was stuck up his ass before he thought better and continued putting the container into the locker.

Satisfied it was sturdy this time, he shut the locker and stepped back just as the lieutenant called the sergeants over. The captain told him to grab the other lieutenants as well before leaving the room, glancing at Schaeffer briefly and then leaving. Schaeffer really wished he could have a nice bunk instead, but it seemed he was going to see his first action far sooner than he thought.

The two other lieutenants entered the area and walked up to the TACMAP along with several sergeants. Some other men of the platoon walked over and watched as well, curious on the mission. With nothing else to do, Schaeffer leaned on the locker and watched as the 1st lieutenant, a youngish man in his late twenties; began to speak.

"Right, it appears as if there was just a bombing in Garmed, local police forces responding to the call started taking fire from various sources; including those three VTOL's that were stolen from the airbase last month. The innies are trying to make some sort of push in the city, and are far more organized than they have been in the past years."

The sergeants listened intently, Schaeffer wondered in the back of his mind how lax the local garrison must have gotten if it allowed fast attack craft to have simply been stolen.

"Second and third company are going to sweep the city and establish roadblocks to keep people out of our hair. We are going to surround the bombing location proper. Third and fourth platoon will commandeer any buildings available and get a good view over the streets and hit those aircraft if possible. First and second will push in on the location from the east and west. You will receive specific orders from your sergeants once we are set up. Pelicans are waiting outside to see us out. Let's do this marines."

The men saluted and then walked out, yelling orders to get outside over their radios. Schaeffer pushed off the locker but was shoved out of the way by a man jogging out of the building, slamming into the metal; he fell to the ground and grabbed the locker in order to help himself up. The lieutenant walked up to him and looked him in the eyes, an eyebrow raised. His name-tape said Antello.

"Fireteam Alpha, Second Squad, First Platoon. You are looking for either Sergeant Atterson or Corporal Smike, you are on the bird Yankee-227, move." Schaeffer nodded, trying to process the information; before saluting and leaving the room, the halls were almost clear now and running outside of the barracks he saw the airfield across the pavement. Several Pelicans were set up and were slowly preparing to dust off along with an escort of five hornets.

Schaeffer sprinted to the Pelicans, half of the marines were already inside of their respective vehicle. He hastily tried to find the right one, spending a minute searching for the correct tag until he finally found the correct Pelican and climbed into the back. He found himself a seat between two privates and sat down, moving his assault rifle to the crook between his legs after making sure the safety was on.

It was another few minutes until everyone filled into the Pelican, and ten minutes more until ATC finally cleared the Pelicans for lift off. As the Pelican prepared to leave, he looked around and asked,

"Sergeant Atterson? Corporal Smike?" Two men glanced over, the entire Pelican erupted into laughter Schaeffer looked around in confusion only to get even more laughs as the Pelican saw his face, the only one not laughing was a corporal who just glared angrily at him.

"Dude that's fuckin' great, even the new guy calls you Smike, Smike." Laughed one of the men in the front.

"Screw off Grace, I don't need to hear your bull."

"Oh god! Oh god! This is great!" Shouted a female marine next to the corporal, the man was red with embarrassment and anger from the laughing.

"I SAID SCREW OFF." He yelled, the Pelican only yelled louder. The corporal shot Schaeffer a death glare and he realized he wasn't going to have a good time in the fireteam.

"W-what did I do?" Schaeffer thought aloud, everyone laughed even harder.

"Oh god man, you don't call Venendez Smike, you never call him Smike." Said the man next to him.

"Whats Smike mean?" He asked, the corporal got redder.

The Pelican filled with even more laughter as she flew towards her objective.


	2. Chapter 2: CATFU

**Chapter Two: CATFU**

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UN colony: Second Base_ _Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_ _En route to Garmed, capital of Second Base_

As the laughter died down, Schaeffer only looked around again. Everyone was looking at either him or Venendez, who looked absolutely furious at him; there was the occasional chuckle or canned laughter but for the most part the pelican went silent. Gradually, people started talking to each other; a slender dark skinned marine with glasses, asked him where he was from.

"Uh... I..." he paused glancing around, surprised by the sudden lack of attention; the man simply raised an eyebrow at this. "Skopje. I am from Skopje," muttered Schaeffer, gathering his courage but still afraid of a burst of laughter at any moment.

"I once knew a guy from Skopje," a tall and sinewy man in the back casually declared, "he was an asshole." This received chuckles across the pelican, Schaeffer gulped and adjusted his collar.

"I- I don't think I am an ass," he commented, not realizing how pathetic the words sounded until after he said it. Venendez just raised an eyebrow, some one in the front laughed hysterically.

"We know you like ass holes Miller," responded the marine with glasses. A few more people erupted into laughter, Miller smiled and sat back in his seat; closing his eyes for a rest.

"So new guy, you got a name?" The man asked, Schaeffer glanced around again before answering.

"Schaeffer. It's Schaeffer."

"That's a boring name, you're Newbie now."

"Newbie?"

"The one and only." The same marine who had been laughing hysterically in the back barely canned his laughter at this. Schaeffer only sighed, he was Newbie now apparently.

_"ETA is three minutes, get ready to move on drop,"_ observed the pilot over the radio; the marines all got ready to leave the pelican. Some men put books or other things into their backpacks, others did last minute gun inspections; the dark skinned man spoke up again.

"Alright newbie, my name is Monroe, your fire team later is Smike." Venendez looked over and shot a glare again, Monroe laughed and continued, "the other members are Miller and Mackenzie. Miller is that tall gay guy down the pelican," Miller flashed the middle finger from the back, "and finally, Mackenzie is the man with the ugly mug to your right.

"Pleasure is all mine," murmured Mackenzie, his voice as smooth as silk.

The pelican shook, and then he felt the bird slowly begin its descent down to the ground. The doors slowly opened as they hit twenty feet, light pouring in from outside; and finally he felt the landing gear connect and the whole vehicle shake. A light on the ceiling turned green and the marines all unbuckled and made their way out.

The LZ was in the middle of a plaza in the capital city, the area was full of evacuated civilians and he saw marines moving barbed wire across streets along with sandbags and concrete road blocks. Police vehicles were everywhere, along with police officers.

"Second squad! On me!" Shouted a man who Schaeffer assumed was Atterson, he stumbled a bit as he left the pelican but followed him through the confused crowd of lost civilians, officers and military members. The rest of his fire-team and the squad proper followed close behind, their weapons carried casually in their arms.

"The LT just got off the radio, gave me the whole briefing and our orders," barked the sergeant, an older and more gruff man who stopped walking once he made it out of the crowd. The squad slowly began to form a circle around him.

"Right, it appears as if the innies have been calling in some out of town all star terrorist talent to help them out here. We don't know why they are hitting us but we should expect medium resistance." The marines all nodded, Schaeffer gulped; he didn't like fighting. "We are going to move up main street where the bombing occurred until we get to the site of the blast proper, the Garmed city bank. Us and fourth will be humping it, first and third squad are going to be bringing up some hogs on the road as we move in case those hornets take flight again."

The team all nodded, someone blared something over the sergeants radio which he responded to in the affirmative. He looked at them all one last time and added, "SWAT teams are positioned and ready to move, they will be providing us with sniper fire from the rooftops. They will be set up by the time we reach the bank. Watch out for civilians too, cops said they cleared the place out but there might be some stragglers. Let's go men, the convoy is already leaving."

They all jogged until they got to the main road and formed two columns on either side of the convoy of warthogs. There were about seven vehicles between the formation, six with machine gun turrets mounted on top and the last one held several passengers in the back.

He was the third one in the formation, walking between the first two hogs as they slowly made their way up the street to keep pace with the infantrymen.

The two men in front of him were casually chatting as the column advanced uphill on the street, with nothing better to do; he listened in on their conversation.

"Hey Hooch," asked the lanky marine who was taking point.

"Yeah Wilson?" Replied the marine directly in front of Schaeffer, a slightly shorter and stockier marine with a scarf round around his lower face to fend off the chill air.

"Why does this part of the colonies get so fucked up all the time?"

"I dunno Wilson I just work here." The marines went silent for a bit, before Wilson continued.

"These buildings are cleared out right?"

"Yeah Wilson, cops said they cleared them out. Why?"

"Mighty good place for an ambush is all..." they walked in silence again, the place was eerily quiet. Smoke was rising from a skyscraper up the hill, there were a few vehicles parked to the side of the street but otherwise the place was void of activity. The only sound besides the two marines talking was a couple of men in the last warthog and the distant sounds of the city. The only thing visible beyond the skyscrapers was the space elevator in the distance.

"Hey uh... Hooch."

"What Wilson."

"You said the cops cleared these buildings, right?"

"Yeah Wilson."

"Than who are those guys on the balcony over there?" Asked Wislon, pointing at a balcony on the fifth floor of a building down the road.

"What the hell are you talking about Wils- OH SHIT GET THE HELL DOWN!" Screamed Hooch, stumbling slightly to his side. Wilson stepped back in confusion as he realized something was going on, the lead warthog slammed to a stop as the gunner tried to rev up the machine gun but nearly fell off as the warthog behind them slammed into the back of the vehicle.

A rocket flew out from the balcony and hit slightly to the right of the warthog. There was screaming all around as the hog slammed sideways and slowly started to tip over. Schaeffer's eyes widened as the metal connected to his side and sent him sprawling towards the hard concrete of the sidewalk. He hardly at time to crawl out of the way of the tipping vehicle. Another rocket flew but was too high and destroyed the second floor corner of the building behind him.

There was chaos all around him as the world spun in a blur, the warthogs had all crashed into each other and couldn't move. The gunners were beginning to fire the machine guns and drivers and passengers were trying to get out of the vehicles and into cover. Bullets were pinging off the armored plates of the vehicles or chipping concrete off of buildings and a few impacted a marine or two from across the formation.

Some one screamed there was a sniper, but Schaeffer could hardly hear anything as the pinging in his ear was so loud and constant. The machine gunner of the second warthogs helmet popped off of his head in a gory mist his scalp exploding and then his head splitting into two. The mans body took a step back before going limp and falling onto the hood of the vehicle behind it.

A corpsman sprinted over and slid on his knees once he saw Schaeffer's body huddled up against the wall of the alley, he slapped him once and he snapped back into reality at the sudden contact; only now noticing the jagged piece of concrete sticking out of his shoulder. He gasped and cried out in shock, but the corpsman told him to shut up and got a firm grip of the rock.

"B-b-b-b-ut arteries!" He screamed out, remembering something he once read in a book; the corpsman ignored him and ripped the concrete out before casually throwing it to his side. Schaeffer screamed and tried his best not to black out from the pain, the corpsman slid a biofoam canister from his medical bag and stuck it into the open wound before allowing the foam to fill the cut and expand. Schaeffer screamed even louder as he swore he felt thousands of knives cutting into his wound.

The pain was only there for a moment before his shoulder went nearly completely numb. The corpsman slid Schaeffer's helmet off, Schaeffer sitting dumbfounded as he saw a huge piece of shrapnel sticking out from a large crack in the top and thanking god he had remembered to wear it. The man grabbed Schaeffer's assault rifle from the ground before handing it to him and running off.

Schaeffer slowly crawled behind the crashed warthog, various weapons were being fired from down the street. Most of the marines were huddled in cover, the warthog gunners having abandoned their vehicles after they saw the fate of their fellow machine gunner; each squad had wounded or dead from the sounds of it.

"THIS SHIT IS COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY F-ED UP!" He heard as he leaned over to fire a burst from his MA5B, as he did so he gasped in surprise; seeing Wilson pinned under the broken warthog. There was bis of metal across the ground and Wilson was unconscious or dead, his skin worryingly pale.

Hooch crawled over from down the alley to his left and took cover behind the wall of the building next to the warthog. When he leaned out to shoot he saw Wilson as well.

"OH GOD DAMN IT!" He screamed when he saw his comrades limp body, he quickly shouted for him to wake up but failing that he attempted to push the vehicle off.

"NEWBIE, SCHAEFFER, HELP ME OUT HERE!" He yelled at him, Schaeffer glanced out at the building they were taking fire from before gathering the courage to get on a knee and try and help.

"ONE... TWO... THREE... NOW," Schaeffer tried to sturdy his knees and pull upward, his hands gripping the back of the hog. They groaned from the effort but slowly made some progress as they desperately lifted the metal. Schaeffer's entire body was screaming in pain from the effort, and as they got it about a foot up he knew he was at his limit.

"RIPLEY, GET OVER HERE!" Hooch yelled at a marine huddled to the side of the second hog. He glanced at the machine gun, cursed and ran over before sliding into the alley next to them; bullets peppering where he ran.

"NEWBIE! LET RIPLEY HOLD IT UP. GET UNDER THERE AND DRAG WILSON OUT." Schaeffer looked over at Ripley who was firing from a crouched position at the building with his battle rifle. The man was muscular and would be far better for the job than Schaeffer.

Ripley dropped his rifle to the ground and took his place as Schaeffer stumbled into the alley, the fire at them was starting to get more concentrated as the rebels saw the movement of the hog. Schaeffer looked under the warthog at the dying man and briefly wondered what to do.

"HE IS GOING TO DIE GOD DAMN IT. DON'T LET HIM DIE." Schaeffer took a breath and tried to take a breath before lying flat on his stomach and crawling under the vehicle. He tried to ignore the fact that Hooch and Ripley's arms were shaking from the effort of keeping the large vehicle up enough for him to crawl.

Schaeffer pushed the broken remains of the turret aside with some effort and crawled in a bit more, he could see some small amount of breathing coming from Wilson's body and groaned as he realized he would have to help him out since he wasn't dead and then instantly felt guilty at the thought. Bullets were peppering the vehicle constantly at this point and the sounds of the bullets pinging against the armor felt like it would go straight to his brain.

Schaeffer grabbed Wilson's collar and satisfied with his grip, he yanked and then pulled himself back. Slowly, he repeated the motion and dragged the tall marine from beneath the massive vehicle for what felt like hours. Ripley screamed he couldn't hold it anymore as Schaeffer finally found himself outside again. Sweat was pouring down both the faces of Hooch and Ripley as their entire bodies shook from the effort. Wilson's body finally came free just as Ripley and Hooch dropped the vehicle down, sliding to the ground and gasping for air.

Schaeffer got into a half crouch and dragged the wounded Wilson into the alley before he pressed up against the wall itself and began firing at the building again. The corpsman ran over and quickly began to check the dying man as Schaeffer fired off several bursts. The rebel sniper took aim and shot once again and as Schaeffer slid back to reload, he saw the corner he was hiding behind explode as the snipers bullet tore through the concrete.

Schaeffer's heart flew into his throat at this and he suddenly decided that he did not want to lean out anymore.

From down the street came two men, ducking and winding around as the bullets hit the ground around them. Schaeffer saw that one of the men had a rocket launcher over his shoulder and the other was the lieutenant.

The two finally made it to the top of the formation with Schaeffer, Hooch, Wilson and Riley and the lieutenant screamed for them to hold fire. The four squads slowly stopped firing, man by man until they were only taking fire. The sounds of men reloading was evident around the road.

"COVERING FIRE!" He screamed as he leaned to the right of the flipped warthog and opened fire, marines all around responded in kind and rifles, light machine guns and marksmen weapons were firing off all in unison at the target. The fire they were receiving died down slightly as the building was peppered with bullets, windows shattering and concrete breaking. The man with the rocket launcher shouted for everyone to get to his side and fired the M19. Flames flew out from the back and the rocket flew forward.

The marines cheered as the weapon connected and slammed onto the balcony. The entire fifth floors windows shattered as concrete and other building materials flew out to all sides. A mans body went flying from the explosion, burning and missing the bottom half of his torso before smashing on the ground in a gory mess. The fire had now stopped.

"Third squad! Load the wounded on the hogs and get the hell out of here! LT's orders!" Schaeffer heard a sergeant shout, all Schaeffer could do was sigh and slump down against the wall. He only had a minute to rest. Over the radio, he heard the SWAT snipers tell them they were ready to fire.


	3. Chapter 3: Tactical Superiority

**Chapter Three: Tactical Superiority**

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UN colony: Second Base_ _Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_ _En route to Garmed City Bank_

The platoon had reformed and reorganized after the attack, gathering the wounded and dead and dragging them to the back of the column. Some men slowly pushed the destroyed warthog all the way to the side of the street and the warthogs carefully removed themselves from the pileup. The lieutenant ordered a fireteam to move up ahead and make sure there would be no further ambushes while Schaeffer and Mackenzie walked together, looking for bodies.

"So Newbie, why the hell are you in the marines?" Schaeffer looked up as they both leaned over and grabbed a dead man, his arm was torn off at the shoulder and his whole body was caked with blood. When Schaeffer just looked up, slightly confused and very queasy, Mackenzie continued, "you look like you are ready to start cryin', I thought they conditioned people to like killing and shit in boot."

They both grunted as they both pulled him up, Schaeffer had a hand on his boots and Mackenzie gripped one arm and the bloody stump that once was the other.

"Well my grandpa always talked up Force Recon..." he said, he tried to keep his eyes away from the blood covered body. At the mention of Force Recon, Mackenzie laughed and smiled.

"Everyone wants to be Recon or ODST or god knows what. Then they end up just a marine." Schaeffer nodded slowly, it was a decent summary of how his membership into the military went. Two marines moved out of the way as they walked by and before he knew it they were at the transport warthog that was being loaded up with dead or wounded.

"I remember back at the farm, there was this one kid..." he paused as they pushed the dead marine into the back of the warthog. The four dead men were piled on the floor while the wounded were cramped on the seats. Any wounded not in critical condition were going to walk it.

"So this kid, couldn't be more than sixteen, asks me if I am spec ops..." Mackenzie tore the dog tags from the mans neck, then handed them to the corpsman standing by. Schaeffer glanced over to see Hooch arguing with the corpsman, demanding he give the moaning Norman more pain killers.

"I am like "sorry kiddo, marine corps," they walked over to a man slumped up against a wall, he had a bullet in his shoulder and was groaning from pain. Mackenzie paused his story and laughed as he walked up with Schaeffer. "Oh man look at this Newbie, Sergeant Kormen got himself a scratch."

"Oh fuck off and help me to the warthog Mackenzie." Mackenzie laughed and Schaeffer went to help him pull the sergeant to his feet.

"That ones gonna get you sent to the back for at least a month, what are you now? A week from leaving?" Schaeffer was dumbfounded at Mackenzie's ease around the bodies and gore, Schaeffer knew it wasn't just him because could clearly see several other marines looking about ready to throw up. One was even crying.

"Where was I... oh right, so I tell the kid I am marine corps. Semper Fi do or die and all that stuff. Kid all of a sudden goes "that's stupid, you don't even do anything." Schaeffer stepped back as Mackenzie helped the sergeant into the back of the warthog, patting him on the back. The lieutenant noticed and leaned over to speak in his radio.

_"Third squad, Omerta is now in charge. Adjust accordingly."_ Schaeffer and Mackenzie started to walk back to the front of the formation as the marines slowly began to organize. _"That's everyone, back in formation everyone. We are less than a mile from the bank."_

"So can you imagine my surprise when the kid says that? IF I wasn't dating his sister I swear I would have beat him down." The two fell into the formation, four men down the line. Mackenzie yawned and Schaeffer cleared his throat, he had something on his mind.

"So... whose side do you think the police are on?" Mackenzie glanced behind him briefly as the convoy began moving up the road.

"Ours?" Schaeffer couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

"But they didn't clear the buildings, even though they said they did..."

"We will deal with police stupidity when that bridge comes." Schaeffer wanted to continue, but decided he didn't feel like talking anymore. The march went on uneventfully up to the point where they entered the plaza outside the bank. The scouts they sent were waiting there, weapons ready.

The other platoons slowly filed into the plaza as they formed a perimeter. Second platoon carefully made their way out of a set of buildings bordering the plaza, while third platoon strolled up a road opposite to the one they rode in on. It was obvious from how they moved and acted that they had met no hostiles on their way up. The platoons linked up, and after some discussing between the lieutenants it was ordered for the entrance to be surrounded and the warthogs to prepare for an air attack.

Schaeffer and Mackenzie had split up when the platoons started to man the perimeter and Schaeffer found himself alone. There was some casual conversation going on but otherwise no one was really in the mood.

_"UAV drones have spotted heat signatures in the building, the captain just told me some very pressing news. The innies nabbed a VIP when they bombed the place, some big guy real high up, no one is telling cappy who he is or why he is there, just to get him out ASAP. Lock and load marines, get ready." Third platoon cheered, being the only platoon who hadn't lost some one on the trip to the bank. Schaeffer simply glowered at the closest member and thought about reasons he hated them._

_Epsilon Indi System_ _In orbit arounnd UN colony: Second Base_ _Ensign Corren Bashar_ _Screwing away time_ _One hour later_

Bashar lit up his cigarette as he leaned in his chair, the smoke puffed up and he felt some of the warmth enter his body. Taking the cigarette out of his mouth briefly for a breath, air visibly left his mouth. The station was frigid, always below zero to ensure nothing went wrong with the equipment. Bashar didn't get it, they hadn't had to do that for nearly five hundred years but whatever, he wasn't going to bother writing a complaint form about it.

His console lit up briefly, the marines reporting this or that. The TACCOM station had been monitoring them all day. Telling them what UAV's spotted or any communications they intercepted. Slow day as always. He muttered he hated his job and took another drag from the smoke.

"Hey Bashar, you should check out this video I just found," mused Sharon, his closest friend on the station.

"What's it now Sharon." He asked idly, taking another nice long drag. The jar heads on the ground were requesting if he saw contacts converging on his position, raising an eyebrow, he told them he saw at least six with various weapons before leaning back again.

"It's this video called 'kitties of New Madrigal', it's hilarious. The cats are basically-" Bashar frowned at his monitor, in addition to misc tactical info he also had access to the sensors around the colony, the planet not being large enough to warrant independent sensory stations. Multiple slip space jumps were detected, they were going to be there very soon. Ignoring Sharon, he clicked through some things on his terminal to check the multiple cameras set up, then he looked for his list of incoming ships. Checking the schedule twice, he saw no ships were expected for at least a week. "-Jeez if you just want to look at porn than you could tell me to stop talking, never mind the fact I have been offering to-" Bashar raised his hand, not in the mood to talk.

"Greenert, I need your schedule for ships movements in this sector, starting from two days ago to a week from now. Possibly late or early ships, I need five names." At the mention of her last name, Sharon's back went stiff and she instantly got to work. She knew that the only time he used her last name meant he was dead serious.

"Cut that, nine, nine ships. I need that list yesterday." Sharon pushed off of her chair, it rolling across the ground towards him. Handing him a PDA, he glanced at the list and compared it to his own. Perfect. Both lists were perfect.

"This can't be right." Sharon leaned over his shoulder and looked into the monitor.

"Have you tried searching for ship names? Could be insurgents." She let the thought hang in the open, the UNSC had three ships at dock, a crappy old frigate experiment called the _Furious Five_, and two sister destroyers who had gotten there yesterday as a stopping point on a longer journey, the _In For a Penny_ and the_In For a Pound._ Nine or more ships versus two destroyers and a barely battle capable frigate would be a massacre if the rebels were brining any decent ships. But it was a good idea, if they were this close than the names would be registering soon. Bashar quickly opened up the list, even rebel ships had the ID's embedded in them.

"There's... nothing... it's reading the ships, but they don't have names..." Sharon pushed farther into his back, if he wasn't so stressed, Bashar would have enjoyed the feeling.

"Impossible, that's gotta be a glitch. Let me go get Captain Fella and we can-" she was cut short as the ships finally left slip space. They were far closer to the planet than any UNSC ship could manage. And they weren't UNSC ships either. Bashar felt the cigarette fall from his mouth and onto his lap, Sharon gasped and squeezed his arms from shock. Training kicking in, Bashar pushed forward and set his comms to all military assets he could get access to.

_"Attention ground and o-orbital teams. Unknown warships have entered the system, class and shape are I have no fucking idea. They are making a bee-line for the planet..."_ Bashar shouted to Sharon before going back to the microphone, "GO GET COMMS WITH THOSE SHIPS, MOVE IT." Sharon ran to her terminal and quickly tried to see what she could do. _"Possible... alien's found. All assets are to follow Protocol 3C, I repeat-"_

"Comms established!" Yelled Sharon, he glanced over when suddenly the screens around the control room all flickered on. Some sort of four jawed creature sat in a seat, nothing seemed right about the image, it just gave Bashar a headache and an ache that he knew could only be filled by tobacco.

_"Your deaths are inevitable, your sorrow shall be joyous music to our ears, for you heretics shall now know the power of TRUE faith."_ The comm link cut out before they could do anything, they just sat there shocked.

"Bashar I-" Sharon began.

"NOT NOW SHARON." He yelled, he quickly slid back into the terminal and tried to see if he could do anything with those ships.

"Bashar I am sorr-" she didn't have the chance to finish, all Bashar saw was blue arcs flying out from the ship and destroying their station.


	4. Chapter 4: New Kids in Town

**Chapter Four: New Kids in Town**

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UN colony: Second Base_ _Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_ _Raiding Garmed City Bank_

The next twenty minutes had gone easily enough, the marines stormed the front of the building, or at least the remains of it. Each man moved with a sharp elegance that showed both fear and drilled precision. Every man was tense and ready, at least the marines from 1st platoon who led them all inside. The marines of second and third platoon were more lax, second had only encountered some men with old rifles and thus were much more relaxed. Third platoon had encountered no one, so they moved with absolute casualness, they had a hint of fear in their mind... yet none of them knew true fear. The fear that roots in a mans head when he almost dies and stays there till they day they pass on. Schaeffer had that, nibbling at the back of his skull and so did the entire platoon. Every man was changed when the firsts shots rang out, and although they did not know it, they were completely different then the platoons following them. They had seen war.

But such matters were trivial at the moment, this was a war, and a war had to be fought. The lobby was clear, body parts were strewn about. The fire department had managed to clear out most of it before they could get there but were scared off by some warning shots after they finished fighting the fire. The lieutenant quickly barked for some sergeant or another to do this and that and before long, everyone was moving. Third platoon was to secure the lobby and the plaza outside and await further orders, second platoon would secure the building while first would be making a bee line to the top where the heat signatures were found.

Schaeffer cursed under his breath, the lieutenant was pushing them harder then he had to. He just wanted to sit down and find a book to read, Sergeant Atterson was yelling at some one to 'tie his fucking laces' and the platoon was waiting a moment for a Lance Corporal named 'Red' to piss in a corner and Schaeffer stepped up to the sergeant, hoping to ask why exactly they were being pushed so hard. "We are moving because we are better." Was all the sergeant said, Schaeffer frowned.

"But we just lost how many men again? The one guy was shot off the turret, and the other was-"

"I know how many we lost, Newbie. But look at third platoon, they would sprint into an ambush if they think it would earn them a medal. And Lieutenant Galbrieth and Sunny are both horrible at their jobs. Why would LT B let them fuck up the most important part of the op..?" He took a breath, yelled something at some one and then finished, "...you know, if you used that thick skull to be a marine instead of bitching you might manage to get a promotion some day." Schaeffer sighed and turned away, the platoon was taking a moment as the lieutenant argued with TACCOM, demanding more info on what he was getting into.

Schaeffer plopped down on the scorched desk that was once the center of the building. There used to be a large statue of a lion he thought, but it was mostly blasted away. The long table stretched around the statue in a circle and the once fine mahogany was simply blasted to black. It was a shame, such well made woods were rare on planets like Second Base, who's only trees were rather rugged and not fit for finer woods. The tile floor may have been clean and polished, but many of the tiles were blown away by the explosion, in the back of the floor was a large crater. The explosion had such force that it had blown away the front wall of the lobby away, nearly forty feet away. Schaeffer felt the churning in his stomach grow more rough as he stared at a puddle of blood behind the desk.

Looking away, he looked around again. A once fine chandelier was smashed across the floor, two staircases went around the lobby in a winding manner before meeting at a balcony in the back that led in deeper. If one followed it they would find an elevator, some one yelled the wires were cut. The stairway and balcony had steel railings that went nicely with the white tiles, and a light blue glass prevented anyone from sliding under. The glass wasn't much however, a person who _wanted_ to go under could do so easily by simply breaking it, the explosion had left only small portions of the glass remaining on each frame.

"Shit stain! Get off the desk and stop jacking off, we are moving!" Shouted Smi- Venendez. Schaeffer glanced over and sighed, time having moved faster than he expected. As he glanced outside, he saw gray storm clouds slowly making their way to them. Judging from the temperature, it would be snowing by midday. Schaeffer made sure his assault rifle was ready one last time and jogged in with his fireteam, at a shout from the lieutenant, the squads were soon splitting up, and at a shout from Atterson, the fireteams were soon splitting up.

Atterson was with them, being first team. The others were in adjacent hallways but were close enough that their occasional blips of conversation could be mutely heard when Schaeffer pressed up close enough to a wall. They moved carefully, more so than when they entered the building. The chances of an ambush in this part of the building was much higher than anywhere else and he was truly scared of every small pile of papers or discarded item. Lord knew what exactly where the rebels could decide to stash an IED.

But they moved uneventfully, before long, they found themselves at a large staircase closer to the back of the building. The squads converged on the location, unable to find another staircase, and they were soon moving up. They had many floors to cover, and their rifles were always pointing at the ceiling.

By the fifth floor, Schaeffer felt a glimmer of sweat on his brow. By the tenth, he was panting a bit, by the fifteenth, he felt his legs would fall off. They needed to get to the twenty first story, the roof, where UAV's were telling them the rebels had brought their captive.

The fun of an easy but exhausting trip up the stairwell was cut short when they heard a ping and saw a grenade dropping from one of the stairwells. The grenade smacked the floor and rolled to Schaeffer's feet, he only had a half a moment to think when Monroe dived back and sent them both flailing down the stairwell. Schaeffer felt his back connect with Mackenzie's front and then every man on the stairwell was yelling and falling back. It seemed not a second later that the grenade detonated, and Schaeffer's ears were filled with a deafening bang. Schaeffer... or Mackenzie for that matter, slammed into the concrete floor hard. They were lucky not to have snapped anyone's neck or their own for that matter on the trip down. Just as Schaeffer was about to take a breath of air, Monroe slammed into him and fell to his side.

Schaeffer let out the air in his lungs and gasped desperately, the pain in his shoulder flaring back up at the sudden force of Monroe's body. As his senses came back to him, he heard the cracking of gunfire and saw some figures leaning over the stairwell above them. They had no cover, and Schaeffer was scrambling away as soon as he found his breath again. Atterson screamed for a private named Massih to use his grenade launcher, and soon the marine was firing the explosive at the staircase three stories above them. There was an explosion and the concrete crumbled, the stairs breaking away. A body fell, the man screaming, before slamming into the railing with a sickening crunch and flipping back over to the floor below.

The rebels scattered away like rats and the stairway crumbled concrete down onto their helmets. When they were satisfied that there was no one else coming, Red stood up from his crouched position behind a railing and reloaded a rifle, before slipping off his helmet and rubbing the sweat from his brow. Schaeffer could see why they called him red now, his hair was a strawberry red, hardly dark and short enough to be regulation. The man dusted his hands and spoke casually, as if they hadn't almost died.

"Well it looks like that guy had a tumble." Was all he said, as casual as if he was referencing some rumor he heard in passing. Schaeffer frowned a bit at his Russian accent, or Rukevitch, the two being nearly identical to his ears. He had only heard a few in his life, Russian really only being common in the inner colonies. He decided not to ask.

"Yeah, wonder if he snapped his spine..." asked Massih, her tan skin in heavy contrast to the pale features of Red.

"Yeah, I wonder if you chuckle fucks will shut up so we can get moving again." Snapped Atterson. Shaking his head, he went over to Monroe and frowned.

"You shoved me down the stair ass hole." Was all he said, rubbing his sides which were sore from the fall. Monroe narrowed his eyes.

"I am sorry I didn't let the grenade fuck you over." Monroe said, before spitting at his feet. Schaeffer opened his mouth to say something but closed it again, he was right he realized. Taking a breath, he prepared to apologize when Monroe told him to go away. Sighing, he walked over to Mackenzie, who simply growled for having almost broken his rib. The lieutenant was screaming at everyone to start moving again, and soon they were off. They avoided the stairs this time, instead walking onto the closest floor they could. They didn't want to risk the crumbling pieces of concrete giving way under them.

_"Alpha Actual, Alpha Actual, this is police sniper team call sign Viper. We have three hornets in the air, sniper teams are at the ready and scanning the building. Over."_ The lieutenant nodded his head and he heard the captain confirm through the radio. The lieutenant raised his gun again and slipped into the hallway that the stairwell led into, the rest of them followed suit.

"First squad, take the left until you find a stairwell, second, right, third squad, hold the stairs. Move, move, move." The men scrambled to follow his orders, Gaffer yelled for his men to follow him and they slipped to the left, Schaeffer ended up just behind Monroe and Venendez who were behind Sergeant Atterson. Glancing back for a moment, he saw the rest of the squad close behind.

The hallway was scattered with papers and chairs but was otherwise left fairly unscathed from the bomb. To their right were a row of windows and to the left were glass walls and doors that showed several office. Schaeffer found himself staring out at the bustling city below. One of the hornets he heard about over the radio came flying up, less than half a mile away from the building. It was painted black, with GPD stamped on the side to show it belonged to the Garmed Police Department. Men in black gear sat on both seats of the vehicle, rifles in hand. In the distance, over the bustle of the city, he heard car alarms and police sirens going off.

A pang of nervousness shot up him again as he remembered the police telling them the way was clear. He quickly shook his head and kept moving, trying to keep his head clea-

_"CITIZENS OF GARMED, AND ALL FOREIGN INVADERS."_ The voice broke through his radio and he heard it through the cities intercoms as well. The squad slowed to a halt.

"Who the hell is that?" Asked Hooch.

"Oh god how did this nut get on the radio..." asked Corporal Cameron.

_"THE UNSC HAS SHACKLED YOU, FORCING YOU TO SLAVE AWAY SO THAT EARTH MAY SEE A HIGHER INCOME. YOU ARE OVERWORKED AND UNDERFED, POLICE BRUTALLY BEAT YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET AND NOW THEY SEND THE MILITARY TO OPPRESS YOU FURTHER."_

_"Oh what the hell is this shit."_ The lieutenant asked over the radio.

"Maybe he's a-" Monroe was cut off when a bullet cut through the back of his neck, Schaeffer closed his eyes and glanced away from reflex as blood splattered his face, landing in his mouth, in his eyes. Monroe didn't make any noise, Schaeffer just saw his head wobble back, the spine broken and then his body slump to the side. Schaeffer simply gasped and felt his stomach churning when another bullet flew out and tore through the top of his helmet. Schaeffer fell to the ground.

There was screaming all around as the police snipers opened fire on them. The man on the radio continued.

_"WE MUST RISE AGAINST THE INVADERS, FOR THEY ARE A FORCE OF EVIL. GOOD POLICE OFFICERS, MEN WHO SERVE YOU! HAVE RISEN UP AGAINST THE UNSC DOGS. RISE UP WITH US, AND HELP US DESTROY THESE MEN, AND ALLOW US TO TASTE TRUE FREEDOM."_ Atterson shouted over the radio that they were taking fire, looking up, Schaeffer saw double doors swing open to reveal a small group of men with rifles. They quickly fell into what cover they could and sprayed them. Miller was sprinting to cover when a bullet tore through his shoulder, sending him spinning to the floor. Schaeffer closed his eyes, then opened them again. He had to do something.

The rebels had ignored him, assuming he was another dead body, but he knew it would not last. Schaeffer found his feet and dived across the hallway, into the office he had fallen in. A bullet whizzed by his ear as he did. Inside, Masih was pushing a desk out the door to act as cover.

_"This is second squad. We are taking god damned heavy fire from police forces and insurgents. Need some one to take down these hornets, over."_ Atterson's voice was crisp over the radio, the sergeant must be in some damn good cover he thought.

_"Alpha 2, this is Breaker Actual, once again this is Breaker Actual. Repeat, you have police snipers firing on you?"_ Schaeffer crawled over to where Miller was writing in pain and quickly stripped off his own medical kit. Miller was groaning in pain, Schaeffer just wished he would appreciate he wasn't Monroe right now. Schaeffer took out his combat knife and cut away the cloth holding Millers shoulder. The man would not stop writhing. The world seemed to blur as Schaeffer's hands moved across the mans body, pulling out pieces of the bullet and bandaging him, all while the table they were behind exploded from the sniper fire.

_"Once again, police are hostile. They have opened fire and I have two men down, I need some sort of fire support over."_

_"FIGHT. FIGHT THE OPPRESSORS. THE CITY HALL HAS BEEN TAKEN, THE MILITARY IS FALLING APART. RISE UP PEOPLE OF GARMED."_ In the distance he saw smoke start rising from the city, the bustle of the city seemed to have stopped.

_"Will some one shut that loon up and get me some air support here."_ He heard the lieutenant ask over the radio, gunfire evident in the background.

_"Rodger that Alpha One, we have two nearby hornets from your insertion. Sending them out."_ Schaeffer cursed and checked his rifle, his hands shaking and making it hard for him to make sure the ammo was all there. Satisfied, he patted Miller on the shoulder and then leaned out of cover.

Most of the marines were huddled down, so were the insurgents. The rebels seemed content to let the snipers pick them off and Schaeffer was dully aware of the fact that if he moved his head an inch higher, he would lose more than the tip of his helmet. Carefully, he leaned to his right and sighted and insurgent firing a light machine gun, attempting to keep them pinned. A deep breath, a bullet whining past his ear, the sound of Monroe's body gurgling blood to his right, the squeeze of the trigger and the rifle pounding his shoulder. The insurgent yelped and fell over, his right eye exploding into a red and gory mist.

"Good job Newbie!" Shouted Hooch. Schaeffer simply gulped and slumped down. He just killed a man.

_"Second squad, this is Quirky, you have hornet support over."_ Schaeffer briefly wondered who Quirky was, until he saw the two military hornets flying over to meet the police. Schaeffer was about to breath a breath of relief when two other hornets rose up. Schaeffer recalled the lieutenant telling them about how some were stolen.

_"Second squad! We have confirmed bogey's on our tail! We can not give support! Over!"_ He heard Atterson curse a storm from the back.

_"SAY GOODBYE TO THE SECOND BASE FEDERAL RESERVE. SAY GOODBYE TO THE RECRUITING STATION. TO THE CITY BANK."_ Schaeffer frowned when he heard an explosion in the distance, then another, then another. Much closer. The building shook as a floor or two under them detonated, then it shook again as the floor above theirs did the same. The police hornet started to push out when suddenly Quirky fly back up, one of his rotors flaming. The hornet attempted to fire off a shot, but one of the snipers fired first and Schaeffer was able to make out blood splatter across Quirky's cockpit. The hornet spun briefly, before slamming into the police hornet. The sniper who killed Quirky screamed as the propeller crushed him, then sent him god knows how far down.

The police hornet briefly attempted to regain control, shaken by the military hornet, when the debris from the floor above them flew out, the wall simply falling off. The hornet barely moved a foot before a concrete slab slammed into it. Destroying the vehicle.

_"Oh FUCK this guy. Switch to backup channels, I am sick of thi-" The lieutenant was cut off by Red._

_"Negative sir, just checked, he is on the backup channels too. And the backup backups."_ The lieutenant cursed and the radio cut out. Atterson was screaming orders, when there was a sudden creaking noise above them.

"Ah hell." Was all he managed to get out before the roof gave way. The floor above theirs collapsing from the damage of the explosion. Floor tiles, scorched wood planks fell as steel supports buckled and collapsed. The rebels screamed as concrete slabs broke through their skulls, the marines were lucky enough that the ceiling didn't simply fall like it did for the rebels. Instead, pieces of it slammed down around them. Schaeffer found himself thanking god, taking off his helmet to wipe the sweat from his brow. He realized how stupid that was and quickly went to put it back on. Atterson shouted for them to move up while the innies were down, and they rushed to follow his orders.

"Let's go, before this place collapses! Cameron! You and Hooch drag Miller and Monroe back to third squad! Move!"

_"Breaker Actual to all UNSC forces in Garmed, police have opened fire on marines across the city. Civilians are arming themselves. Al l UNSC forces are to fall back to the Garmed City Hospital to regroup and rearm. We are going to turn it into a forward operating base. I repeat, all units besides 3rdrCompany, move to Garmed City Hospital immediately."_

_"Er... Breaker Actual. This is Alpha Actual. Are you telling me we are stranded here?"_ The captain sounded both pissed and annoyed. Trying not to focus on the conversation, Schaeffer struggled up and ran down the hallway with the rest of the squad, ignoring the aching in his arm. A few rebels were still alive, trying to free themselves from the rubble. They were swiftly shot.

_"Alpha Actual, this is Breaker Actual. I got messages going straight from the tippy top about this. You need to get that VIP no matter what. Over."_

_"Alpha One, this is second squad. We have found a stairwell sir."_ Atterson climbed over the rubble and past the door the rebels came through. Peaking in behind him, Schaeffer saw a concrete stairwell leading up, slightly damaged from the explosion.

_"Roger that second squad. We are taking heavy fire on the west side, we will be unable to send you aid. Get to the roof ASAP. TACSAT is telling me that there are six plus hostiles, plus the VIP up there. We got more moving around the building and third platoon is starting to take some hits. You need to get him ASAP."_ The sergeant sighed and yelled for them to form up.

_"WE MUST REMOVE THE UNSC FROM GARMED, WE MUST THROW AWAY THE SHACKLES. THEN WE SHALL RISE AGAINST THEM. JOIN ME PEOPLE. FIGHT FOR FREEDOM."_ As Schaeffer climbed the stairs behind Atterson, the remains of the squad behind him. He felt a nervousness in his gut. The day had gone horribly so far, and now he knew it was somehow going to get worse.

After climbing without a fight, they found themselves outside a set of double doors at the very top of the stairwell.

"Newbie, Pejo, Griffith. On me." The four marines quickly took positions on the door, Schaeffer had to sigh as he realized he was going to be the one breaching it. The other four marines leaned against the wall of the stairs, waiting for them to move in. Atterson raised four fingers, lowering one every second.

"Breach!" Schaeffer's training kicked in, he pushed off the wall, braced himself and slammed his shoulder into the door. Schaeffer slid out and dived behind a vent. The rest of the squad ran out, finding cover themselves. The rebels did not shoot.

"Surrender scum! Surrender or else the agent dies!" Schaeffer peaked out of cover, so did the rest of them. The rebels were in their own cover, besides their leader whom Schaeffer assumed to be the one who had been screaming for the last ten minutes. In front of him, on his knees, was an ash covered man in a tattered business suit, he had been beaten to a pulp.

_"Citizens of Garmed! The military has sent their agents into your homes, into your government and your banks! Their agents have attempted to sway the people who own them, away from our righteous cause! But no more!"_The man glanced at them one more time, making sure they were not surrendering. He seemed unafraid. _"Now he dies!"_

_"Smoke the bastard!"_ The squad opened fire, Schaeffer aiming for the mans chest. But it was too late however, the sidearm he had pressed into the VIP's head fired, and blood and brains splattered across the roof. The leader was quickly gunned down too, and a few grenades and hundreds of rounds later, so were his friends. A moment after, the lieutenant and first squad slammed through the double doors on the opposite side of the roof. He took one look at Atterson, then at the dead VIP, then cursed.

_"Breaker Actual to Alpha One. We are preparing transport for the VI-"_

_"Negative Breaker Actual... we lost him."_ The lieutenant shook his head and pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose. Schaeffer was dimly aware of the ever growing amount of fires around the city, and the distant sound of gunfire and police sirens. It had begun.

_"God damn it Alpha One. That guy was our last shot at stopping this."_ The lieutenant cursed. The captain and Breaker argued it out over the radio.

_"Alpha Three to Alpha One! We got hostiles swarming us down here!"_

_"Roger that Summers. I will get that UAV drone to spot you out."_ The lieutenant called TACCOM again, and the bored operator at the orbital station started telling them numbers. Schaeffer found a vent to sit on as the squad milled around, the sounds of battle in the distance were getting louder. He saw an explosion ripple out in the distance, all the way over at the space elevator. But he didn't see any real damage to it. Way out in the sky, he saw the three UNSC ships docked to the station. He had a feeling they would be called upon before too long.

_"Alpha Actual to third company. We are moving out, drops ships are moving in to drag us out of here. Shortswords are close by and have scared off those pelicans, for now. Just sit tight an-"_

The captain was cut off by a quite urgent sounding message from TACCOM

_"Attention ground and o-orbital teams. Unknown warships have entered the system, class and shape are I have no fucking idea. They are making a bee-line for the planet... Possible... alien's found. All assets are to follow Protocol 3C, I repeat-""_

The man stopped, and the marines all glanced at each other, confused. Schaeffer slowly got off the vent and checked his rifle again, it sounded like the innies sent their navy. Schaeffer just wanted to read a book and catch some sleep, but it sounded like he wouldn't get either for a long time.

_"Alright, form up I want everyo-"_ the captains voice was cut out, the radios going blank. The marines glanced at each other again when a moment later the ground began to rumble. A massive purple ship seemed to be lowering itself into atmosphere, despite being miles in the air, it was still taking up most of the skyline.

Venendez and Mackenzie stepped up next to him, staring at it. So did Masih, Griffith and Riley. The entire platoon had their eyes on the sky. The fighting around the city seemed to have stopped.

Schaeffer wished he had slept on the ride.


	5. Chapter 5: Goodbye Wall Street

**Chapter Five: Goodbye Wall Street**

_ERROR_ _ERROR_ _CONNECTION LOST_ _ERROR_ _HAVE A NICE DAY_

Mackenzie whispered a prayer, Red let out a low screech that may have been an attempt at a groan, Masih and Atterson both let out a tumble of hushed curses while Venendez swayed for a moment and then fainted, falling into the lieutenant's arms. The only sound were the distant sirens and the noises the ship made as it lowered over the city. The ship was absolutely huge, Skopje was one of the UNSC's biggest shipyards yet the monster was bigger than any ship Schaeffer had ever seen in his life. From the ship, he saw dots slowly getting larger, flying towards the city. The larger ones vaguely reminded Schaeffer of pelicans.

Glancing over, he saw the lieutenant seemingly unfazed by the new arrivals, he quickly dropped Venendez to the floor and called for Chaplain, the platoons Corpsman. Then began to shout out orders to everyone on the roof. The roof was too large for everyone to hear, but the orders were carried across by those who could. Schaeffer heard his name and orders to search the bodies in the mess of orders, the entire platoon found its feet at once.

Schaeffer ran over to the bodies and landed on his knees next to the man who had shot the VIP. Schaeffer tried not to puke, at least fourteen holes in the man and his arm slightly torn off. His head looked like a crushed melon, and flies had already begun to gather around the bodies. He hated bodies, and this one was no better. But Schaeffer knew they didn't have time, something was about to happen and they could all feel it in the air, so Schaeffer patted the man down as best he could.

_"One magnum..."_ he thought to himself, tearing the weapon from the mans grip. The barrel was still hot, and blood caked the side of it from the execution. He was distracted by the sound of a large boom, the sound echoing back to him from the streets below. In the distance he heard screaming, police sirens and gunfire. The dots from the ship were getting closer. _"One wallet..."_ he tore the piece of leather from the mans coat pocket, he heard a humming sound from somewhere.

_"Carton of cigarettes..."_ he took out the green and red carton, titled 'Goldstein smokes' and tossed them behind him, the humming was beginning to get closer, he tried to ignore it. _"Headset radio..."_ the humming turned into a chopping noise, he glanced to the edge of the building, only twenty feet away from him.

He shoved the wallet into his pocket and sat back on his haunches, watching the edge. He nearly went back down to the body when a battered hornet slowly rose from the edge of the building.

"Oh fuck. Oh hell. Oh no." He said, his eyes widening. The pilot was definitely not UNSC and the machine guns were slowly beginning to rev up. Schaeffer spun to the side and shot up, sprinting away. He was cut short when his foot caught on the dead VIP's flank, sending him sprawling.

He had just a moment to glance behind him and watch his death get closer and closer when a screeching noise, like that of some sort of banshee became clear. One of the purple dots got big, fast, quickly gaining shape as it got closer. Schaeffer saw two wings, weak looking and not completely solid, but with two thrusters on the end of each. The rest of it had a curved hull, two weapons were mounted at the bottom.

The hornet fired off a shot before the Banshee let off its own. From somewhere between the two guns a green ball flew out, rippling with energy. The Banshee broke off and the ball slammed into the back of the hornet, between the two rotors The machine seemed to disintegrate, the sound of the fuel and ammo cooking off filling Schaeffer's ears.

He covered his eyes from the bright light, the green ball burning through the metal like paper. The pilot was consumed by fires as the cockpit exploded, and the twisted husk of the helicopter slammed into the roof and skidded, right past Schaeffer. The machine tore away several air conditioning units and other objects on the roof. Two marines dived out of the way as it came at them and then slowed to a stop.

Atterson ran up and asked him if he was okay, Schaeffer only dumbly nodded. The hornet hadn't hit the roof hard enough to break through, but the trail of devastation was followed by flames from the pouring fuel. Venendez shook off Chaplain and sat up, he looked around dumbfounded, confused by the destruction. Atterson shouted for him to organize his fire team. Venendez stared at him for a minute and Atterson screamed again.

"IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR SPANISH ASS IN MOTION I WILL KICK THE HELL OUT OF IT." Venendez didn't seem to understand for a second, but then shook his head and scrambled to a standing position.

"Schaeffer! Mackenzie! Let's go!" He yelled over, the two marines glanced at each other from different sides of the roof and ran to the corporal. The other teams got organized as well, getting ready to move out as fast as they could. The lieutenant idly checked his rifle, his uniform seemed to be neat and clean despite the recent combat. In comparison, they all looked like a bunch of civilians who had found fatigues. He idly wiped some dust off his shoulder pad and then began to talk.

"We are getting back down stairs ASAP. We got unknown forces dominating the air right now, rebels surrounding the building and no comm's. Second Base has ground based comm facilities but they won't be working right away so we got a bit with no support out here." The lieutenant took a breath, looking at his men who had formed a circle around him. "We are stranded. And I have no idea if those things are hostile or no-" he didn't finished as his eyebrows raised.

Schaeffer, who had been standing in front of him, looked around confused before he looked behind him. A part of the city exploded in the same stuff the hornet was hit with, but blue. Pure blue energy flew at the city from the ship, tearing apart buildings and streets, one of the skyscrapers practically hollowed out when one of the blasts hit it. The screaming was so loud and so plentiful that it reached Schaeffer's ears, over a hundred stories in the air. He shuddered.

More blue balls flew from the ship, but then subsided. Schaeffer wondered if it was some sort of terror tactic when he saw the real reason, the two frigates in orbit began to close in on the ship. The third stayed back, pelicans leaving its bays and flying towards the ground below.

The frigates tried to soften the target with their archer missiles, hundreds of them spilling out at the alien vehicle. A blue shield suddenly popped into existence where the missiles uselessly splashed across. The ships continued closing in on it however, and one of them fired its mass accelerator cannon, shortly followed by the other. The two blasts, capable of breaking the crust of a planet, managed to pop the shield of the ship. Suddenly, the blue streaks flew towards the UNSC frigates.

The men gasped as the energy cut through the ships hull. The one on the left groaned, the sound of bending metal filling the sky. Then, as if the supports just gave up, the ship buckled and split, the two pieces falling towards the planet. Fires tore across the hull. The other ship attempted to maneuver away but ended up just taking the energy on the underside. Explosions rippled across the ship as fuel and ammunition lines detonated and it drifted to the surface. Its engines still uselessly holding it in the air.

Burning bodies and metal poured out from the frigates. The one on the right seemed to still have some surviving crew, and it fired off as many of its missiles and other weapons as it could before it disappeared behind one of the far off mountains. The other one broke into a few more pieces, and most of them fell onto the outer city. A part of the engine however, flew over their heads and straight into a skyscraper, twenty or so blocks away. The engine destroyed the windows and walls of the office building and the skyscraper tilted slightly, it stood for now, fires beginning to gut the building. But it was obvious it was going to collapse soon.

Looking back, the lieutenant gulped, his previous confidence having seemingly tapered off a tad. He was silent, and then ordered them all to get downstairs, and to be ready for a fight in and around the lobby. The platoon nodded and began moving.

As Schaeffer followed Mackenzie and Venendez out, he glanced up to see the third frigate flying off to another area of the planet. The huge ship began to move again and flew after it. The missiles seemed to have had an effect on the engines, and it moved slower than Schaeffer would have expected. The frigate shot off its drop pods and more pelicans spilled from it. The alien one seemed to be doing the same.

The view was cut off as he walked back into the building, the butt of his assault rifle pressed firmly into his pit. The building had been crumbling since the explosions went off, and as they walked down the stairs, pieces of the wall crumbled and fell to the ground below. The floors had slowly been collapsing as they spent their time on the roof and four of them were now gone, if they didn't get out soon than the whole building would drop. The marines were dead silent.

They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, when they finally got to the sixth floor. Schaeffer stumbled away from the stairs and took a ragged breath, putting a hand on the doorway and gasping for air. His fatigues were practically black from the sweat and his legs wobbled uncontrollably. The rest of the platoon was in just as bad condition, and some of the more out of shape marines such as Angelo's and Correlo were heaving and wheezing from the effort. A young looking marine was waiting for them when they got down, he hugged his assault rifle protectively and waved at the lieutenant.

"Sir! I'm Private Bell with third! Captain Veenhoff is holding down here with Lieutenant Summers! I was told to get you." The lieutenant nodded and took a breath before responding.

"What's the status, Bell?"

"It ain't good sir! We got a squad pinned down in the lobby, and second platoon is only getting to us in small numbers, explosion scattered them. The captain's been trying to reestablish comm's but there ain't no way till the comm towers are reactivated. We got a lot of wounded too, Doc Free got hit as soon as the rebels charged and we got marksman and light machine guns in the building opposite to us with a fucking nutty amount of infantry." The private motioned for them to follow and pushed through the metal double doors.

The sounds of battle were clear now, gunfire only a hall or two away. Wounded were scattered around the hallway, leaning against walls or groaning in offices. Some marines went from wounded to wounded, doing whatever they could to help with their rather bare medical kits. The private jogged past them, continuing to talk.

"One of the men in second warned us he saw APC's moving down the street from one of the windows. They didn't look friendly, but we haven't seen those yet. Those new things have been flying down from time to time too, they dropped a few innies on the last run. But they tore apart some of our guys the one before that, so we have been conserving missiles in case they make another go at us." He turned a hallway and cut through some offices, ending up in a large and spacious hall on the side of the building, similar to the ones Schaeffer had fought in previously.

The private motioned for them to get down and they all got into a crouch. Marines were hiding behind the low walls under the windows, occasionally popping out to open fire on the insurrectionists who were invading the building. They found empty cover to take and Schaeffer sat down next to the lieutenant, a female voice screamed for them to fire their rockets the building opposite, and the missiles streaked out at he building opposite to them soon after.

The lieutenant leaned over to chat with an older looking marine next to him, on closer inspection, Schaeffer recognized him as the captain from the base. Bell ran off back down the hallway, a woman down the hall fell over screaming and was quickly dragged off by the man next to her.

Schaeffer pulled out his assault rifle and took aim at the closest man to him, he briefly hesitated, remembering the last man he killed. He wondered if he really wanted to do this, but when the man reloaded and aimed his rifle at Schaeffer, there was no hesitation Instinct kicked in with the recoil of his rifle. The man fell, blood pooling around him.

He swiveled around and fired at another man who slid in to cover before the bullets could reach him, sliding back down, he checked his ammo meter. As he did so, a bullet broke a piece of glass off the sides of the window as he did and he ducked down further, dust and broken glass falling on his broken helmet, he raised his rifle to his eyes and when he didn't feel the falling debris anymore, he checked his meter again.

He heard a rumble and then the familiar pit pats of rain droplets hitting the ground, when he leaned out the window to crack off another shot, he saw that it had begun raining outside, and it only seemed to be getting worse. Schaeffer looked over the sight, adjusted, then shot at where he saw a rebel go into cover before quickly ducking back down. _"Half a mag left..."_ he thought to himself.

He almost leaned back out when he heard the captain shout his name, he glanced around for a moment before he locked eyes with the man. Falling back behind the wall, he pulled himself along the ground until he pushed into the lieutenant's flank, then leaned out to see the captain.

"PFC. Schaeffer?" He yelled over the gunfire, the lieutenant nodded at the captain with annoyance when Schaeffer glanced at him. Gulping, he said yes. "Good. What did you find on the body!?" A grenade flew through a window down the hallway. The marines scattered before it could explode.

"I-I found..." he thought for a second before he remembered the wallet. Quickly dropping his rifle, he tore it out of his pocket and handed it to the captain. The man, white hair visible and his cap nowhere to be seen, waited for more and then sighed, accepting it. He quickly flipped open the leather container, some pictures of a little girl and an older woman slid out. Schaeffer felt a pang of remorse, the captain and lieutenant didn't care or didn't show it, instead the captain just rooted through the wallet.

Pulling out an ID card, he scanned it before looking up.

"Josef 'the mad dog' Cardova, Jesus Christ this is bad." The lieutenant and Schaeffer both frowned, the captain glanced at the two and then continued, "three thousand dead at the Willhill City bombings on Emerald, sixteen hundred in the London gas attacks back on Earth, thirty thousand in the Paris IV uprising we had to clean up for months." He shook his head, Schaeffer gulped as he realized the implications, the lieutenant seemed to process it in his head before speaking.

"Cardova was insane but not stupid, he knew that if he died here he could be a martyr. He wanted us to kill him." The captain nodded and added in.

"If he is here, god knows who else is. We knew a revolution was coming, but we didn't think it would be this bad. And with those purple things? The rebels must have brought them." The lieutenant frowned, Schaeffer idly wondered how the rebels managed to get such technology. The timing was just too good to drop what the captain said.

"ENEMY ARMOR!" Some one screamed, glancing out the window, he saw a black APC come flying up the road, slamming into one of their warthogs and practically ignoring the metal beast. The gun turret rotated and began firing on them. Schaeffer managed to spot the markings that said 'POLICE' disappear as the doors opened before he shrunk down as far as he could.

Machine gun fire tore through the brick wall, though he couldn't imagine how easily it would destroy most construction Skopje. He thanked god for the buildings attempt at a classical design as the rounds wrecked the walls. Marines scattered to find better cover and Schaeffer grabbed his helmet and shrunk down to make himself less of a target.

"WHERE'S THAT ROCKET LAUNCHER!" Some woman in the back screamed, another screamed that they were all out. Schaeffer could hear the captain cursing as dust and water droplets flew in all directions. Marines were cursing and crying and screaming all they could think of.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE ON THIS SHIT HOLE PLANET!" Screamed one of the older men down the line.

"FUCK THIS PLANET, FUCK THESE REBELS FU-" another tried to scream and was cut off as his shoulder exploded, his arm flying off and landing a foot from Schaeffer. He tried not to groan.

The man to his right was even younger than Schaeffer, he looked about seventeen. He cried as he said to himself, "be our safeguard ag-gainst wickedness and the s-snares of the d-devil." He continued on, blabbering about God and Satan, constantly tripping over words and repeating the same one as he tried to remember, a bullet blew through the wall not two feet from his head and he grabbed his knee caps and continued, getting into a ball.

The whole scene was surreal to him, it was going in slow motion. The man with no arm groaning and crawling on the floor, blood trailing behind him as he crawled towards his arm. The corpsman down the line with his hands in a mans chest, trying to do some operation. The lieutenant and captain trying to shout orders as another marine collapsed when he tried to move from cover to cover. The screaming. The commotion. Schaeffer felt like he was sitting in some sort of odd dream.

He snapped out of it when his radio exploded with voices.

_"ALL ASSETS IN GARMED, MARCONI TOWER IS NOW BROADCASTING. I REPEAT, MARCONI IS NOW BROADCASTING."_ Schaeffer blinked as he heard Breaker shout over the radio. The operator seemed to calm down and continued on. _"Reinforcements have been dropped in from UNSC ship _Furious Five_, all assets currently in the business district of Garmed are to fall back to Garmed Medical Center, UNSC forces are regrouping at Garmed Medical Center. Any units in and around Garmed City Bank, a warthog column is moving in. Shortsword bombers are available for CAS on your mark."_

The captain was on the radio before he could finish, shouting in response. _"I got men dropping like flies here Breaker..!"_ He phased out as Schaeffer turned to the marine next to him, still sputtering and praying despite the multiple voices on the radio. He crawled over and grabbed his shoulder.

"It's gonna be alright! IT WILL ALL BE OKAY!" He screamed, shaking him until he stopped praying. The marine looked at him for a second before grabbing him with his arms, still crying as he wrapped him in a bear hug. Schaeffer's arms flew to his side, having no idea what to do. Hesitantly, he patted him on the back. More bullets flew through the wall, a female marine fell to the ground, the right half of her head missing. Schaeffer gently pushed the other marine back to the wall, then scooped up the mans rifle and shoved it back into his hands. Tears still streamed down his face, but he held the rifle and nodded.

Another man lay on the ground, a piece of splintered wood speared clean through his shin. Schaeffer could see glistening bone that had been snapped by the wood, he got on his knees and crawled over, oddly feeling no more fear.

The man squirmed, screamed, cursed, groaned, cried. Everything Schaeffer had seen in the other dying men he had encountered, feeling no more emotion, he simply tore open his small medical kit and took out the tourniquet He wrapped it around the mans thigh, just above the wound. The marine grabbed onto Schaeffer's fatigues as he worked, Schaeffer looked him in the eyes as he tightened the tourniquet He would put in biofoam, but he doubted shoving the wood and bones apart was a good idea.

The sound of jets was heard, and Schaeffer glanced behind him. He didn't see any jets, but he did see the blast as the plaza below them exploded with the Shortsword's bombs, their figures temporarily leaving the area in shadow. The fireball flew past their floor and pieces of shrapnel and loose stone flew through the windows. He fell over the mans body, covering him from the rubble before going back to applying the tourniquet. The man was going to lose the leg, Schaeffer knew it.

Screaming reached the marines ears as the rebels were burned alive, Schaeffer pretended he didn't hear them. Instead he called for a corpsman and ran off to help the next wounded man. The marines peeked out the windows to make sure everyone was dead or dying, the captain confirmed the kills over the radio.

Schaeffer groaned a bit as he climbed into the back of the warthog, the muscles of his legs screaming in protest. He turned around to give Red a hand into the vehicle, the captain hadn't bothered to reorganize the platoons, claiming that the building would collapse any minute from the bombing.

Schaeffer was inclined to agree, first and third platoon were lucky that their side of the building didn't collapse. Second was less so, the ceiling had toppled straight down onto their heads, leaving so many of the platoon dead that the captain refused to allow them to be carried out, stating it would take too long. Schaeffer heard marines mutter every number between one and thirty marines dead in the collapse.

Red grasped his hand and Schaeffer grunted as he pulled the man onto the back of the transport vehicle, he nodded his thanks and sat down next to Schaeffer's seat. Schaeffer fell back into his own, rubbing his blood stained hands on his forehead to stop the headache he had received from all the explosions.

"So... Newbie." Schaeffer was getting sick of the name, he was just about to snap. "You got a name?" Red continued, Schaeffer frowned. _"You stupid idiot, stop assuming things, you are just going to make enemies."_Thinking this, he glanced over at Venendez in the warthog next to theirs.

"Yeah... Schaeffer. Leonard Schaeffer." Red frowned at the name but shrugged. "Well Leo, my name is Dmitri, welcome to hell." It was Schaeffer's turn to frown.

"You have seen combat before?" The talking seemed to get his mind off the pain in his everything, so Schaeffer talked.

"Hell yes, way back on... Paris IV, I saw lots." The man across from them, a corporal, spoke up.

"Ah quit your bullshitting Red, you saw one fucking skirmish before this."

Red glared at the man but nodded. "Yeah yeah, thanks for ruining my fun Cameron."

"This ain't a time for fun, idiot." Red was going to say something when the driver shouted they were moving out. The warthogs had driven up into the plaza, shortly after the airstrike. The guns only had half of their ammo left, the drivers claimed they had killed at least a hundred men on the way here, and lost one of the vehicles to the Banshees.

The warthogs wheels began to move and the vehicles pulled away from the plaza in a loose column, there were a dozen vehicles, a few of the transports were left empty due to the losses. Schaeffer sighed.

"So where you from?" Schaeffer had been asked that before, by Monroe. Schaeffer though of him, dead in a hallway without most of his neck, his head dangling by a cord of flesh. He felt emotion bubble up again in the form of him wanting to puke.

"Uh... Leo?" Red asked again, Schaeffer blinked, trying to erase the image.

"Skopje. I am from Skopje."


	6. Chapter 6: Holding the Breach

**Authors Note:** Sorry this took so long! The delay is my fault, for I slacked on the last three chapters and had to catch up with this one if I wanted to end the volume where I wanted to (all the last chapters were originally meant to be in chapter 2!) I want to thank the halo fanon user Lieutenant Davis for helping edit this thing with me, and Anonymous ONI agent for emotional support or something.

**Chapter Six: Holding the Breach**

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UNSC Furious Five_ _First Sgt. Henry Rhoade_ _Moving to reinforce UNSC forces in Garmed_

Rhoade saw one of the frigates hangar crew get onto a knee and make some movements with his hand, his yellow vest and helmet making him stick out like a sore thumb. In responses, the Pelican lowered its bay door and turned on its engine.

"First squad! Hup to!" He ordered, the marines had been waiting in the hangar for an hour now, on standby in case the marines on the ground needed help. They were ready to drop at a moments notice, some hardened from combat and some practically had their mothers milk still on their lip. Some were black, some were white, some were tall and some were short, but most of all, they were _his._

The marines all jogged into the back of the Pelican, quickly finding seats and strapping themselves in. First Lieutenant Roberts was soon after them, Rhoade didn't like the man too much, but the man was an officer and his word was gold. The lieutenant's brow was furrowed in concentration.

Rhoade looked at Corporal Radke, the veteran marine sitting across from him, a white skull and crossbones stamped onto his helmet. Rhoade disapproved of the modification, and had been pressuring him to get a new helmet for weeks, but they didn't have time to worry about small things such as that right now. They had a mission.

"What's wrong, Radke?" The sergeant was genuinely curious, Radke only showed emotion when he had to, and he certainly never brought his personal life into the workplace. If he thought there was something wrong, it was probably important. The corporal looked up at him, there was a look in his eyes that Rhoade couldn't quite place. Was it fear?

"I have this feeling in my gut... something is going to go awry, sergeant." Rhoade rubbed the back of his neck. This was unlike Radke.

"You aren't one to get spooked by nothing, corporal." The statement was innocent enough, but he immediately felt regret for it, realizing that Radke might take it the wrong way. The corporal didn't seem to notice.

"A combat drop with practically no warning, that comes after Captain Pisenti tells us there is a hostile ship in atmosphere. Not to mention no one is telling us nothing, none of the crew can explain what's happening, and we can't get a comm with the ground." The corporal's voice was quiet as it always was, making Rhoade strain slightly to make out the words, he sensed a hint of desperation in the mans voice. That too was new. But Rhoade had seen too much in his career to make this scare him, some of the things he had seen made this look like a training exercise. Still, Radke being scared of something was bound to be a poor omen.

Rhoade was about to open his mouth when the bay doors shut with a whine of hydraulics, a weak red light shining over the cockpit door to help them make sure their gear was in check. The conversation was over he could see, the corporal deep in thought. A private's in the back told another a joke and him and his friend both laughed, the sounds of their laughter helped set his mind at ease.

The Pelican flew for several minutes, the pilot told them there was something 'fucking huge' in the sky and that the_Furious_ had just retreated. Rhoade's fears returned, he glanced at the corporal who still sat in the same position, thinking. It wouldn't matter much really, the _Furious_ had dropped off about its entire crew, sans crewmen, to go down to the planet. No explanation was given on why they needed to drop so many men, the corporals prophesy was becoming more and more real.

The Pelican shook violently, a marine cursed as his head slammed into the back of the seat. Rhoade yelled an order for them to don their helmets, and those who had been relaxing without the metal items quickly slid them on.

_"Ah fuck! Rebel AA... I think!"_ Rhoade grabbed his seat and wondered what 'I think' meant, the Pelican shook again. The pilot sounded Australian to Rhoade, though the names of Earth countries tended to mash in his mind, he quickly reopened the Pelican intercom, _"What type of AA is this!?"_ the pilot asked, panic sliding into his voice, _"God damn it, it's coming from the inside of the city. I am getting orders to switch LZ's to a construction yard in the outskirts, hold on!"_ Rhoade felt the Pelican bank hard to the right and Rhoade could hear the sound of explosions mix with the sound of the rain as they got closer to the ground.

"Squad! Get ready!" Shouted the lieutenant, signaling them to check their ammo. Rhoade made sure there was a clip in his assault rifle, the rest of the squad did as well.

_"We are going in hot, watch-"_ the pilot was screaming when he said it, a sudden bang cut him off. The bay of the Pelican shook and then slowly began to rotate, Rhoade heard another bang from the cockpit. _"AH! AH! AH! FIRE!"_ the marines could all hear the pilots cries through the cockpit door, they exchanged worried looks and murmured questions. Rhoade felt them going faster.

Another explosion, the bay door of the Pelican creaked as the hydraulics began to fail, and then they flew open. Rhoade's eyes widened, the construction site was one of the stupidest LZ's he could imagine, the rain had turned the loose dirt into pure mud. A crashed Pelican, half buried, flashed in view as they flew over the site, the ground getting closer and closer. Blue and green beams of energy were flying out from wherever their Pelican was pointing towards, and he saw the shapes of marines being cut down.

"We are going down!" He screamed, the marines all began cursing and making sure they were buckled in.

Another explosion, the Pelican shook and tipped. Rhoade watched as the front half of the bird was engulfed in energy, the metal twisting and screaming as the front twisted and exploded. He heard his marines scream in pain and fear, Rhoade felt burns forming from the blast.

The remains of the Pelican didn't have its engines and fell in a free fall the remaining forty feet. Rhoade felt a jerk and his hand went to check his rifle. Another, he lowered it to the buckle, he would need to get out in a moments notice when they land- another jerk, his hand slipped and he clicked down.

"Fuck." Was all he got to say as he flew from the back of the vehicle and to his death.

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UN colony: Second Base_ _Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_ _Retreating to Garmed Medical Center_

Schaeffer watched the plaza as it became a distant memory, the husk of an APC and at least thirty bodies filling the area in front of the bank. Flames burned throughout the building and the grounds, undeterred by the rain which had grown steadily stronger since it began, around a half hour ago. Schaeffer reached up and found his collar, before buttoning it together, hoping to keep his neck warm. The rain still froze him to the bone despite his attempt to defy it, and he raised his balaclava up to cover his mouth.

Looking around the transport Warthog, he looked at the faces and tried to identify who exactly he had gotten in the hog with. Red sat next to him, frowning at some thought in his head. Hooch and Cameron sat next to each other across from them, next to Cameron, who sat across from Red, was Masih and two marines from third platoon who identified themselves as Busy and Shmoe. Leaning in, he saw that two marines from his own platoon sat next to Red. One had a sharp nose and small, beady eyes, Schaeffer judged him to be about five foot five, easily the shortest man he had seen all day. Next to him was a very tall, lanky figure, his helmet had scratches in it to denote three kills, he seemed normal besides his large buck teeth, him and the marine next to him chatted like old friends.

Red glanced over to see Schaeffer leaning out to watch them and leaned in until his helmet clanked against Schaeffer's, he whispered into the private'ss ear so no one else could hear him. "Tall one is Rat, shortie next to him is Mouse. They are best friends or something, I hear Mouse was in a gang back on Earth before he joined up." Schaeffer nodded and was about to turn away when Red continued on, "don't fuck with Rat, man. He sometimes brings in some illegal shit for the guys, drugs, hollow points, you name it. No one has told the lieutenant yet, don't want to risk him coming for us." Schaeffer glanced at the tall marine again, he seemed harmless enough. But Red looked worried so he nodded, hoping to appease him.

The Slavic marine sighed and leaned back into his seat, going back to his own devices. Schaeffer wrung his hands, wondering what he could do to pass the time. Masih spoke up, loud enough so they could all hear her over the sounds of rain and war.

"He was a green marine and he surely shook with fright, he topped off all his ammo and made sure his pack was light." It took Schaeffer a minute to realize she was trying to sing, Masih didn't have much of a voice, and the rest of the Warthog just looked at her confused. Schaeffer felt bad, knowing that no one would help her try to restore morale. As she began to continue on, he decided to go on with her, having nothing else to do besides take pity.

"He had to sit and listen to the first sergeant roar, you ain't gonna fight no more!" Schaeffer remembered singing in the choir at his church, he never took to the religion, or the singing, but he tried to remember the lessons he had received on how to sing. Red and Busy began to pick up after them.

"Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, gory, gory what a hell of a way to die," Mouse punched Rat on the shoulder and the taller marine shrugged, they both added their voices, "gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die! He ain't gonna fight no more!" Cameron muttered a curse and then began singing with them lightly, their voice was carrying now, he heard some one in the Warthog behind them sing with them. Schaeffer thought it sounded like Venendez.

""Is everybody happy?" cried the sergeant looking up, our Hero feebly answered "Yes," and then they stood him up; he ran into the bunker, his combat boots untied, he ain't gonna fight no more!" The entire Warthog column had picked up the tune, some part of Schaeffer wondered how safe or appropriate singing was, but he told himself he didn't care, continuing to sing instead. The verses came easily to them now, those who didn't remember simply mimicked those next to them, the sounds of their voices filled the street and echoed off the buildings. Verse after verse passed.

"His laces tangled, his rifle gone, his time drawn to an end; the gun was aimed, the innies laughed, "A hell of a way to die!" they shot him full of holes and shot him just some more, oh he ain't gonna fight no mo-" they almost finished when they heard a screeching noise. Schaeffer looked up to see one of the Banshee's fly by in a blur, marines cursed and shouted and he heard magazines enter their rifles.

_"We are halfway there! Gunners! Hold the fuckers off!"_ A woman shouted over the radio, the gunners of the hogs with turrets spun the machine guns around, the magnetic plates under their feet swiveling with them. One of the Banshee's slowed and lowered, hoping to aim straight for the transports.

Three different turrets spewed bullets, the Warthog's chain gun was commonly used for infantry combat but was built to shred aircraft, the Banshee never stood a chance. The bullets tore through the vehicles purple and green hull and tore off one of the wings, smoke drifted up from the back as the vehicle shook and tried to evade. The other wing broke off and the aircraft lost control, it spun into an apartment building to its right, the Banshee tearing straight through the wall and exploding somewhere inside. The marines all cheered. Red laughed and screamed out,

"He ain't gonna fight no more!" The marines smiled, another Banshee lowered and attempted to go faster than its partner, the Banshee's bomb flying out at Schaeffer's Warthog before it broke off. It was shot down before it could gather enough speed to avoid the bullets, and the Warthog swerved out of the way of the Banshee bomb. Schaeffer thanked god that the bomb flew out wide, or else they would be dead.

The next one didn't take any chances, simply firing as it flew by at full speed, spraying the convoy with blue energy. The marines all pushed into their seats, Schaeffer heard a man scream in the convoy in front of them. Another two slowed down, one flew out of control from the Warthog bullets and its partner followed, but not before it launched off its own bomb. A Warthog with a turret in the back of the convoy exploded.

_"God damn it, reroute to 46th avenue, we are going through the tunnel"_ the captain shouted over the radio, the lead Warthog took a left turn and the rest of the convoy followed it. The Banshee's still flew by overhead but they didn't risk slowing.

In front of them, the road tunneled under the next level of the city. The mountainous terrain didn't allow a flat layout, so they broke down the slopes and flattened the slopes into walls, then built tunnels into them to bring people to different levels or to some other part of their own. It made the city rather defensible if they decided to lock down the tunnels, though he doubted anyone was around to lock them all.

A larger alien vehicle flew overhead, two large prongs coming out of a cockpit and some sort of energy shooting between them. The shape reminded him of a fork, which he found amusing. It was less amusing when the sides of the two prongs opened up, doors flipping up as creatures hopped out of their hidden seats. Most of them were short and Squat, but were made taller by what looked like some sort of pointed backpack. There were around twenty of them, the other two would be taller than a human if they weren't hunched over. Their dark blue armor reflecting the rays of the sun. As they got closer, he could see that their mouths were split into four parts.

They all ran to the railings of the above level and aimed strange weapons down at the convoy, Schaeffer had raised his rifle the moment they hit the ground and fired a burst into one of the smaller ones.

The creature let out a scream and stumbling backwards before dying, the rest fired energy at the Warthog's. Two people in the back Warthog screamed as the energy impacted them, Cameron yelped as a small green bolt slammed into his body armor. Schaeffer smelt burnt metal as he screamed for help and tried to pull his ballistic plate off. Masih had a dagger in her hand in an instant and sawed through the straps. Schaeffer leaned forward with Red to help tear the ballistic plate off.

They grunted and then pulled with all their might. The remaining strap snapped off and they fell back into their seats, Schaeffer raised the plate he held in his hand until he was looking through the melted hole in the center, Schaeffer saw that Cameron's fatigues had a large black burn mark. Cameron tried to cough and then cried out in pain. When he opened up the front of his fatigues, Schaeffer saw his skin a deep red.

"Oh god! Oh fuck it hurts!" Masih held him down, trying to calm him.

One of the turrets fired, and another one of the short creatures fell just before they entered the tunnel. Schaeffer heard a scream from Busy and he saw why when his eyes adjusted to the dark light of the tunnel. The alien creature, for it could be called nothing but alien, had fallen over the railing and into Busy's lap. Bright blue blood left four large holes in the creatures chest and dripped over Busy and the Warthog. The marine quickly shoved it off and onto the floor.

"What the hell... is that thing?" Gasped Mouse, it really was an alien. Some kind of gas mask was wrapped around its face and its eyes were squeezed shut in the pain it had felt in its final moments. The pack was made of some sort of metal, and the flat top of it, slanted up, had a cap for whatever it contained. Its skin looked leathery and dark blue, and his armor was an orange.

Busy and Shmoe asked the two marines across from them to aid in getting rid of the creature, and all four of them leaned over to lift. With a heave, they pulled it up and tossed it over the side, it splattering somewhere in the tunnel. Busy groaned, his entire uniform coated in the blood, the older marine pulled out his canteen and tried to clean away some of the blood.

"Not a good idea man, shits gonna get cold... saw it on the news." Busy shrugged and poured more water before bottling it and sliding it back into his pack, Shmoe sighed and leaned back into her seat.

The convoy had been going down the emergency lane of the tunnel, normally reserved for police, ambulances and maintenance workers. The lane had been clear of vehicles, unlike the regular lanes which were packed with abandoned and crashed cars, Schaeffer was hoping the rest of the lane would be clear when he felt the Warthog's slow down.

_"Everyone dismount, we got a blockage."_ Everyone in the convoy groaned and cursed but followed the captains order, hopping from the vehicles and onto the cement of the tunnel. Pain jolted through his shoulder as the biofoam began to wear off. He was glad they were going to a hospital, he had heard too many horror stories of biofoam being left in a wound for too long and leading to infections.

_"Form up into your squads and get moving, we need to get out of here, now."_ Words were yelled out as the men all found their squad mates and began walking down the tunnel. Venendez waved to him from up the column, the marine standing next to a tired looking Mackenzie. Schaeffer was happy to see Mackenzie had made it through the convoy... and Venendez too.

The two walked ahead of him, forming a small line as the entire company made their way through the tunnel. There was a loud rumbling and a boom and all the lights in the tunnel went dark. The company froze in place, Schaeffer gripped his rifle even tighter Dust and dirt fell from the ceiling as the tunnel shook.

Shortly after, the emergency lights flickered to life, the red lights casting an eerie glow on the marines as the slowly made their way through the tunnel. Someone remarked that the bank must have just collapsed on top of them, but no one else said anything.

They continued on in silence for another few minutes, Schaeffer had began to phase out the sounds of the tunnel. The dripping of a punctured tank, the buzzing of the lights, the lieutenant listening to his constantly blaring radio, the occasional muttered sentence of a marine. He listened to the muted sounds of the city outside, distant booms and gunshots. Something about them kept his attention, and every new noise put a new edge to his anxiety.

The sounds of the tunnel came flooding back to his ears when something tapped his shoulder. Schaeffer squeezed his eyes shut and then glanced over to see Masih walking alongside him, offering him a cigarette.

Schaeffer had seen the pictures of blackened lungs and holes in throats, the horror stories about tobacco killing people and ruining them from the inside and out. The emotional issues they were supposed to cause, the ruining of lives.

And Schaeffer wanted it. Badly.

It took him everything he could to shake his head 'no', Masih simply shrugged and lit it before sticking it in her mouth. Schaeffer watched the cigarette's progress when Masih caught him staring at her mouth. A smirk played across her lips.

Schaeffer was about to try and play it off when she spoke up first, a mischievous look in her eyes.

"So are your Skopje girls pretty, Newbie?" Schaeffer gulped, looking around nervously.

"A-as pretty as e-everywhere else I guess." Something about the way she was looking at him made him nervous, he didn't want to be talking to her anymore.

"Oh? So I am just as pretty as your nice Skopje girls?" Schaeffer didn't know what to say.

"Y-yes?" He wanted to smile, but his mood didn't permit him, currently consisting of fear matted with confusion with a hint of pain and the need to piss. Masih moved a bit closer, her hands finding her breastplate. The armor had no shape, but it had the desired effect on Schaeffer, who felt like a child.

"Oh Newbie, what a great compliment." Schaeffer was growing sick of the nickname, but he had no idea what to do.

"Masih, stop messing with the poor kid." Schaeffer glanced behind himself to see Busy walking behind the two. Schaeffer wondered why he wasn't with his fireteam when he remembered the losses they had taken, he chose to remain silent. Next to Busy, Cameron and Hooch walked. Cameron looked like he was trying to ignore the incident while Hooch just looked at his feet awkwardly with the face of a man who was wishing he was anywhere but there.

Masih was about to say something when Hooch spoke up.

"Yeah Masih... come on, now isn't the time." Masih looked slightly annoyed but quickly smiled, showing what she felt about their complaints.

"Oh I am just teasing the kid, that's all." Busy looked annoyed by her statement.

"Masih, you're hardly twenty. He's barely less of a kid than you are." Schaeffer noticed the wrinkles around his eyes.

"Please. Just look at Newbie, he-" Masih's retort was cut off by Hooch, who now looked at her, his voice dripping with venom.

"Don't call him Newbie you bitch. He doesn't. Like. It." Schaeffer was surprised at the sudden outburst, and Masih looked amazed that he had said that. After a moment of silence as they walked, Masih smiled again, though her eyes sang a different tune.

"Oh? So Schaeffer replaced Wilson now? You two gonna go off into some corner and practice kis-" she was interrupted yet again as Hooch grabbed the back of her armor, pulling her back. Schaeffer heard the marines rifle clatter on the floor as his fist swung at the side of her head. Someone in the back of the column yelled "OOOOHHHHHHHHHH!"

Masih stumbled off but recovered faster than Hooch expected, her leg swinging around and connecting with his ribs. The marine stumbled back with a gasp as his hand fell to his holster, but Busy grabbed him before he could draw and restrained him.

Masih was about to send another punch when Schaeffer grabbed her arm, trying to calm her down. Someone watching must have mistaken his movement for an attack because Schaeffer felt a fist connecting with his face a moment after. He stumbled off and fell on his ass, blinking away the stars.

When his vision returned, he saw Riley grab whoever struck him and lift him off the floor in a bear hug Behind him, Rat swung at Shmoe.

There was a crack and the commotion died down immediately. Red grabbed him from behind and helped him to his feet, Schaeffer could see the captain standing in the center of the tunnel, smoke rising from his magnum. A bit of dust came down from where the bullet met the ceiling, and Schaeffer could see the scowl on the captains face.

"We are marines..." he intoned, his voice was straight and even but Schaeffer could feel the tension in it. "It's about damned time that we started acting like it." Schaeffer's eyes widened when the captain pointed the magnum at him. Their eyes met, and the words caught in Schaeffer's mouth. "No more fights, no more trouble. We are all marines, and we fight and die together. We don't kill each other in the process." The tension could be cut with a knife, and the captain let it draw out for a minute before he holstered the weapon.

The lieutenant cleared his throat and told everyone to keep going, everyone began walking again, including the other platoons. Silence had truly engulfed them this time, and not a single person made the slightest whisper.

They continued in silence, Schaeffer didn't know how but he had ended up in the front of the formation, the third person down from the front. He heard something squish and glanced down to see red blood pooled at his feet, to high right, a man lay on the floor with several bullets in him.

"Oh shit..." he gasped, the man in front of him glanced back as he slammed to a stop. His hand went towards his radio when a bullet flew out from the end of the tunnel and slammed into an abandoned car to his right. Every marine dropped to the ground, Schaeffer groaned as he landed in the pool of blood.

More bullets flew out, but the marines were all sliding into cover in an instant. Schaeffer gripped his rifle tightly, someone screamed over the radio that there were innies in the tunnels.

The person identified as 3rd Company.

Schaeffer's eyes widened at the realization, and he began shouting into his radio before anyone else had the chance.

"Friendlies! We are friendlies goddamn it, stop shooting!" The shooting continued for a second and then stopped, the captain repeated the message over the radio. After another minute, there was a confirmation and the captain was ordering everyone back up.

Schaeffer was reluctant, but the captain ushered them forward, his magnum in hand again. Schaeffer raises his rifle slightly, just in case As they got closer to the parked Warthog's, Schaeffer was able to make out some details. It looked like one of the barricades that was put up around the bank, and consisted of two Warthog's with mounted machine guns and two metal barriers facing the outside.

That would be what it was in a perfect world, though the reality was different. Someone had decided that they needed to get through the barrier and fast, and had driven straight into the tunnel, through the barricade. One of the Warthog's was shoved to the side, its flank dented and torn where the car had impacted it. One of the barriers was laying on its back as well, and only two ragged looking marines were holding the area.

A dark skinned corporal greeted them as they walked up, he was leaning into the driver seat, his rifle flat against the front of the hog. In the back, an older but just as shaken looking private's squeezed the grips of the turret, smoke slowly rising from all three barrels

The captain stormed up the formation.

"What the hell was that?" He demanded, the corporal looked up.

"Sir... they've been swarming us for the last hour." Schaeffer looked out towards the tunnel they came from, there were bodies everywhere. Mostly human, many clutched old rifles or other weapons, blood was pouring down the sides of the road.

To the side, five other marines lay dead, shell casings were lying all across the ground. None of the dead marines had bullet marks. He looked back to the captain and the corporal, the corporal looked ready to cry.

"They just kept coming, whenever we killed one, so many more came at us." Schaeffer looked back down the tunnel.

"There aren't that many, sir." He said, the captain looked sidelong at him, then glanced back down the tunnel. "Only about twelve on my count." The corporal shook his head when they turned back to him.

"Not them... it wasn't the innies. It wasn't them." Schaeffer frowned and walked towards Hooch, he wanted to thank him for standing up to him. Hooch was gathered with half of the company on the other end of the tunnel, all of them were staring out the tunnel.

He walked up and squeezed between him and Busy to see what the commotion was.

The pavement outside went into a ramp, meeting the raised area outside. The city stretched on outside, Schaeffer could see several buildings, burning in the distance. Schaeffer's view went down from the skyline and to the pavement, and what he saw was a killing field. There were three Banshee's, their husks scattered across the pavement. Among the bodies of vehicles were the bodies of the creatures that had attacked him on the bridge. He lost track at forty, the Squat's blood poured out and pooled around their bodies, bright and blue.

Among them were the taller hunch backed ones, their mouths were four mandibles with teeth facing in. They reminded Schaeffer of some sort of Squid, around twelve of them lay in various states of mutilation. There was also some sort of long nosed creature, they almost looked like some sort of bird of prey. On their dead arms were shimmering discs of energy, Schaeffer assumed they were some sort of shield.

"The- they came at us like a wall, the shields were up front... they were swarming us." The lieutenant seemed confused.

"How did you survive this?"

"The car that took out our other Warthog came in the middle of the fight, crushed a whole bunch of them before smashing into us. It had some civies in it, but they were killed when the car crashed down there."

"And the rebels?"

"They came before, we were warned that the rebels were up and about right before comm's went out. Then they hit us." The captain sighed.

"And who are you?"

"Corporal Vanderfeld sir, private's Arrington is on the gun."

"Vanderfeld, Arrington, you're coming with us."

"Sir?"

"The cities gone to hell, you've probably noticed already. Those... things are swarming all our positions, so says the radio. We are all pulling back to the medical center for evac, if you stay here you won't last much longer." Arrington hopped off before the corporal could speak, he looked relieved, his hands shaking slightly. The corporal glanced at his rifle.

"Was on my last mag anyway, don't think the Warthog had much left either. Lead the way sir." The captain nodded and began walking towards the exit, stepping over bodies as he went. Schaeffer glanced at the dead marines before sighing, no time for the dead.

The marines picked their way over the bodies and to the hospital, the mood was terrible.

The hospital was a large tower, surrounded by parking lots. There were two different lots, one took up about two thirds of the building and the other managed the remainder, they were split by two other buildings. The parking lot was empty besides a comparatively small area outside the entrance had been surrounded by vehicles, trucks, cars, civilian hogs. Everything was piled up in a circle, with some other large objects added to the makeshift barrier.

There was an opening in the center of the barricade, Schaeffer saw movement, green armor, blue GCPD uniforms, the colorful styles of civilian clothing. Two Warthog's pointed their weapons outside, and Schaeffer could make out the profile of a Scorpion. The captain ordered them to fan out as they approached.

_"Bakers"_ someone from the barricade demanded over the radio, the captain quickly gave the counter sign.

_"Dozen"_ the captain said into his own radio, the voice came back on and instructed them to get in quickly. Schaeffer noticed movement on the rooftop and saw what must have been a sniper team, he wondered how many hidden rifles had been pointed at them as they approached.

There were bodies in the lot, but surprisingly few for how major the fortifications were. Some of the aliens lay in pools of their own blood, along with a few humans, but there were almost as many dead aliens as there were for the small barricade they had grabbed Vanderfeld and Arrington from. He kicked a Squat in the head as he walked by, something about the crack made him feel a bit better.

They carefully made their way past the piled vehicles, the barricade was hasty and unorthodox. If the UNSC was planning a stand here, whatever was choosing to attack them could knock the entire thing out with a good airstrike. It seemed more time effective to just block the door and use the windows. He had a feeling they just wanted to make use of the tanks.

They slowly filed through the opening, several people stopped to watch them enter. Marines, police officers, civilians, all armed. He saw a few people in uniforms that he did not recognize, he guessed that they were colonial militia. He wondered how many were on the other side of the barricade, and how many were helping the innies.

A short marine in a field cap walked out to greet them, his hair was a dark brown with some streaks of iron. He approached the captain, who saluted immediately. Schaeffer heard the word major thrown out, the major gave a lazy salute back and the two exchanged some quiet words as the marines slowly gathered in the courtyard. After a minute, the two saluted again and the major walked away. The captain turned to them.

"Right, looks like we are making camp here. Second and third platoon are to aid in evacuation efforts, first is to help secure the front this area, we've been working hard all day... despite some slight problems." He glanced at Hooch when he said it, Schaeffer guessed that he had been filled in on the march. "So make sure your men get some rest, rotate out a squad every once in a while. Snipers are saying that the area is clear for a while, though the enemy is swarming everywhere else, so don't rush it." The lieutenant's all ordered their men around, Atterson told them to lay low for a bit.

The lieutenant yelled something to the sergeant, and Atterson turned to them with a sad look.

_"Second squad, we're on leave for a bit. Hang around or mill through the hospital, but keep your radio on. And try to make your selves useful."_ Schaeffer sighed in relief, the knowledge that he could rest for a bit was great news.

He glanced around the 'courtyard' seemed a bit bigger on the inside, two Scorpion tanks sat idle, their drivers sitting on the armor and sharing cigarettes. Marines, militia, police, civilians, everyone was armed and everyone had something to do. Crates full of munitions were dragged to firing positions, vehicles were repaired, wounded were dragged into the building and people stepped over stacked crates to watch over the barricades.

The building rose up high, and he could barely see two barrels sticking out above the courtyard. Pelican's flew overhead constantly, landing in the back parking lot, picking up the civilians swarming the area. The other parking lot was connected by a tunnel, just to the right of the double doored main entrance. Huge glass panes gave the lobby light, the ceiling reaching nearly three stories. Rather extravagant, and not very good tactically. Some effort had been made to block the lower windows, but there was no way to get all the way up to the top ones in the time they had.

There was a groaning and a screeching and heads all turned outwards, and they watched as the Garmed City Bank collapsed into itself. Floor dropping on floor, dust and ash flying out in all directions, a militiamen remarked to his friend that it looked like a plane had flown into it, the ash flew into the sky and he could hear screaming. Though people had been screaming everywhere for hours.

He felt a hand tap his shoulder and saw Hooch standing with his hands stuffed in his pockets. His balaclava was gathered around his neck and his face looked grimy, though he saw a hint of a smile on his lips. How anyone could smile at a time like this was beyond him.

"Hey pal," Schaeffer grimaced, Hooch didn't seem like a bad guy but he had caused far too much trouble for Schaeffer so far. "We were just going to go visit Hooch, got one of the nurses to tell me where he was, wanna come?" Schaeffer saw Riley, Red, Mackenzie and surprisingly enough, Masih standing there.

"I don't even really know him..." he said, he honestly didn't want to. He wanted to go and catch some sleep in the lobby, maybe read a magazine, Hooch looked like a child who was just told he couldn't have a new toy.

"You're the one who saved him, he'd be dead if it wasn't for you." Schaeffer opened his mouth again but decided against saying anything and closed it again. He didn't want to save him, he was going to say, but instead he just started walking towards the entrance. Hooch clapped and jogged in front of him, leading the way.

"Apparently they are putting all of our wounded on one floor with a bunch of people they can't organize, so the nurse knew where to point us." They pushed through the front door, the heat hit him instantly. He hadn't really realized how cold the pouring rain was until he walked into the hospital, the water dripping from his helmet and clothing and pooling on the floor. He carefully unbuckled it and tucked it under his arm.

"Shouldn't you guys be guarding the front?" He asked, Masih looked over and winked.

"We wanted to have a little fun." Schaeffer was sick of her games and just glared at her, her smile faded.

"What the walking STD is trying to say is that we asked really nicely." Hooch growled, Mackenzie gasped, Masih clenched her fists and Riley grabbed both their shoulders.

"Come on guys, now isn't the time." Masih glanced at Riley and then Hooch before sighing and adjusting the strap of her marksman rifle. They walked through two double doors next to the reception desk and into an even warmer hallway that smelled of blood and lilac. He heard something go splash and realized he stepped in blood, it was everywhere. No one to clean it he guessed. They turned and began walking down a hallway, offices to either side, an elevator sat at the end of the hall.

Marines walked up and down the hallways, some limping. Schaeffer recognized none of them from the morning in the base, and neither did the other he guessed, as no hellos were exchanged. A corpsman brought a bleeding police officer into the elevator and went up, they waited outside.

"Wonder why cops are here, thought they were innies." He said to himself, Mackenzie glanced over, yawning a bit.

"Not everyone rebelled I guess, surprised there are this many though." Masih looked thoughtful and then answered it.

"They don't want to rebel now that the aliens are here." Something about the statement made Schaeffer laugh, rebelling is perfectly acceptable as long as alien's weren't invading. No one else found it funny.

There was a ping and the elevator doors slid open, they all stepped in, Hooch pressed the button for floor ten, someone shouted for them to hold the doors.

Schaeffer's eyes widened when he saw two ODST's stumble down the hallway, holding up a limping third. The wounded ODST had the red stripe of an NCO, and one of the men holding him up had a red cross on his shoulder armor and the other had the white stripe of an officer. Schaeffer slammed his foot between the sliding doors just before they closed, and the ODST's finally reached them, gasping for breath.

"You guys alright?" Asked Riley, the white striped man asked them if they looked alright. Schaeffer had to answer no as he stepped to the side to let them in, the NCO had blood staining his ankle, his foot at a bad angle.

"We... ran here... for six miles... only stopped for them... to let us through the gate." Schaeffer glanced at Hooch, who looked equally confused.

"You didn't link up with friendlies? You seemed a bit far awa-"

"Everyone's dead." The white stripe said, Schaeffer's eyes widened again, ODST's were legendary. Stories of their training might be a bit exaggerated, but their list of accomplishments were huge and any man or woman willing to do what they did needed a certain level of bravery and strength.

"Dead?" Was all he could ask, the corpsman nodded, sliding off his helmet as the NCO leaned against the wall and slid onto his ass.

"The northeastern part of the city... it's gone. All gone." The dark skinned man didn't look like he would say more, the third ODST took off his helmet as well, showing a young woman wearing a balaclava He hadn't realized she was a woman until she took off the helmet, it made him feel uncomfortable all of sudden He straightened his breastplate.

"They dropped us in to help secure the marines LZ when they landed to support you guys, we didn't know we would be fighting aliens. Or that they would have anti air." Schaeffer wanted to groan, a quarter of the city was already gone?

"You couldn't blow it up?" He asked, she glared at him.

"We were told we would be fighting revolting innies with some light armor, not alien tanks," she rubbed a hand through her shaved hair, the glove coming away with a bit of fresh blood. She frowned at her glove, but continued on regardless. "We dropped across the northeast, mostly in parks and other places there wouldn't be people running around. Comm's went down, along with UAV's and my platoon dropped blind. Lot of us had bad landing and didn't make it past the crash, we hardly made it out ourselves.

"How'd you manage that?" He asked, the corpsman shook his head and knelt to check the NCO.

"Killed a lot of aliens, killed a lot of innies. Both were shooting at us and each other, some marines managed to link up with us too. They had it worse, had to land in a mud field while getting fired at by machine guns on all sides. Less than two platoons made it out I hear, it was a regimental drop." Schaeffer crossed his arms, they would need every person they could get if it was that bad.

"Well I'm glad you made it out" he said, she raised an eyebrow at this and Masih smirked from the wall she was leaning on.

"N-no, not like- I mean we are going to n-need ODST's here." The eyebrow lowered Masih giggled from a corner, Schaeffer felt ready to slap her as he felt the flush in his cheeks.

"Well thanks for the concern." She said, the door opened before Schaeffer could reply, and she and the corpsman picked up the NCO and dragged him out. Schaeffer watched her go.

"Someone has a crush." Said Masih as she walked out, Hooch glared at her but said nothing as he followed. Riley looked uncomfortable and glanced at Schaeffer as he passed, Mackenzie just looked bored. He waited a moment before following. He wished he was sleeping for the tenth time that day.

The hall was even messier than the bottom ones, two marines lay in the halls with doctors checking them, he heard crying from somewhere in the opposite direction, and as they walked past rooms, he saw operations and amputations taking place.

Hooch stopped them at a room with the sign 53B10, the drapes were shut and the door closed. Hooch pushed it open and gave a sigh in relief, Wilson was laying in a hospital bed at the end of the hall, pale but otherwise intact. His armor was piled on a chair in the corner.

"Hey guys..." he said, his voice sounded weaker than it had in the morning, but he wasn't dead, so that was something. Hooch ran over and hugged him, then stepped back, embarrassed

"So what was the diagnosis?" Schaeffer found an empty chair and fell into it, finally giving his aching legs some rest. The rest crowded around Wilson.

"Four crushed ribs, snapped femur, punctured lung. Nothing I can't handle... docs said I wouldn't have made it if I waited a second longer." Hooch smiled and pointed to Schaeffer, who sat rubbing his shoulder. The bandage was soaked red now, _I should check with a doc..._ he thought to himself.

"Newbi- Schaeffer dragged you out from under the hog, all while getting shot at." Wilson nodded at him.

"Thanks kid, come on over here." Schaeffer looked at him, glancing around. After a moments hesitation, he pushed himself to his feet and walked over.

"It's no problems, innies are the least of our worries." He said.

Wilson raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean? What happened? The grounds been shaking for an hour now, but the nurses left and I can't push the curtains open. No one comes when I press the button either..." Hooch coughed into his hand and looked away, no one wanted to say anything.

"Guys, come on, what happened? Someone else get hurt? I heard McFly got his head taken off in the ambush but nothing about anyone-"

Schaeffer didn't let him finish, he walked towards the huge windows. There was more glass than wall, a stray bullet could take him out right now.

"Schaeffer, don't-" Hooch started but didn't get to finish as he gripped the curtains and threw them open. Wilson gasped, even Schaeffer stepped back in surprise. It was worse than it looked from the ground. He realized that the room was facing the northwestern side of the city.

Tracer rounds flew up from at least thirty different locations, so did the balls of energy. Hundreds of Pelican's, Hornet's, Shortsword's and Longsword's flew around, going over the hospital or into the distance, dog fighting with the purple fighters of the aliens. Green energy flew up into the sky as well, streaking up and striking Pelican's and other fliers, taking them down with ease.

Artillery flew in from out of view, and occasionally a bomber would get close enough to the ground to drop its payload. From far up in the sky, he saw a Vulture firing down with its howitzers.

Tons of buildings were on fire, or blackened husks. Many more were slanted. Before their eyes, one skyscraper toppled over into the one next to it, buckling the other and causing both to collapse onto the city. His radio was giving a quiet blare and he reached down to turn it off as he stepped back and watched, every eye was on the window. As he reached for the power button, his hand slipped and he dialed the sound higher.

_"This is Tango two-two, we need help god dammit, I got wounded and-"_

_"Uh... X-Ray Actual, this is Alpha Actual, I got some sort of hostile mortar firing-"_

_"Iceman this is Breaker Actual, I read your distress signal, but we are all tied up. Try and hold your crash si-"_

_"For fucks sake Assassin, we need help NOW! My lieutenant's dead, my sergeant's dead, my corporals dead. Everyone is DYING."_

He finally found the off button and clicked it, the radio had become damaged in the bank somehow, and kept switching from area broadcasts to everyone on the channel. When he looked back, Wilson looked pale, and everyone looked some mix of scared and angry.

"W-what are those things..." he said, pointing out at the landscape.

"Aliens..." said Riley, the big marine looked suddenly small.

"You're kidding me." Wilson responded, looking at all of them, he saw no joke in their eyes.

"Wilson... a lot of people are dead." Hooch seemed sad, he sat on the bed with his friend.

"Who?" Hooch gave a laugh that didn't show any sign of humor

"Fuck man. Everyone. Second platoon is gone, most of them died when the bank collapsed. McBee lost his entire squad, besides Butcher and Barbosa. Rachel and Spencer are gone, Correlo lost an arm, so did Wendell and Deleon Cameron has burns in the third degree all along his chest, and Kelano, Rocha and Greenville won't walk again." Wilson played with his hands, he looked like he didn't know what to say. Masih decided to add in.

"Kormen, Miller, Jorgsen and Zheng got hit too. Monroe is dead, Bulhart and Schuhart got caught in the rubble and had to be dragged here. Soldern has been carrying the mortar by herself. And if I overheard the captain right on the march here, innies got a nuke in town hall." Wilson shook his head and tried to get up, gasping from the effort. Hooch tried to grab his shoulder but Wilson pushed him away, Schaeffer went over to help.

"I can fight damn it... I'll get some payback..." Schaeffer gripped his arm too, pushing him down. The marine continued to try until Riley grabbed his shoulders, the man couldn't budge. He seemed too pained and tired to, regardless.

"W-hat are the purple ones called..." Wilson said when he was settled, the question seemed out of place.

"What?" Hooch asked, Wilson shook his head.

"The alien ones, with two wings..." He sounded scared, Schaeffer continued pressing him down.

"I call them Banshee's." Everyone looked at him, Wilson continued on.

"Oh... cause there's one coming right at us." Everyone turned to the window.

"Get down!" Schaeffer yelled, diving to the floor and gasping as he slammed onto the floor. Masih and Riley followed, Hooch grabbed Wilson and pulled him to the ground, who cried out in pain as they fell to the floor.

The purple vehicle flew by, unleashing a torrent of energy and one of its bombs before banking hard.

The energy slammed against the window and flattened against it, they weren't bullets and Schaeffer watched as the window didn't shatter. Instead, the energy burned through the glass, melting it and disappearing on the other side. Parts of the window fell out and smashed as the rest was melted.

This all happened in a second, because a second later the bomb hit them. The entire wall exploded, green energy flying out in all directions. The room was around sixty feet across, the energy bomb hit at the complete opposite end, almost between theirs and the room adjacent.

Schaeffer felt extreme heat play across his face as he looked up, he quickly squeezed his eyes in response, but the blast had burned his vision white, his eyes screaming in pain. He realized that he was screaming too.

The chair he had been sitting on flew away, half of it charred black.. The curtains caught flames from the heat and the stone tiles turned molten, their edges turning to glass.

A lamp that was in the corner disintegrated, so did a poster of the human body. The counter and the sink melted and was torn apart, and the floor above theirs creaked and sagged a bit at the edge. Someone in the other rooms were screaming, he guessed it was from the ones to their left, the bomb would have killed the patient and any doctors with him.

There was relative silence after, the light fixture had short circuited as its wires burned away, and the drapes were slowly spreading flames. Schaeffer kept his eyes shut as he heard shuffling and moving and Wilson groaning again.

Hands gripped the back of his armor and pulled him up. He steadied himself as he rose and slowly opened his eyes, his retinas stung and everything seemed pale. Masih was standing in front of him, shaking him.

"Oh Christ he's burnt, his eyes look real red too. You alright Schaeffer?" He squeezed his eyes shut again, people were running down the hallways.

"They got past the air defenses.." Masih frowned and then realized what that meant.

"They can start landing troops now..."

He squeezed his eyes shut again and switched the radio on.

_"All squads! First platoon! Get the hell out into the front! They're here!"_

"How the hell did they sneak up on us!?" Yelled Hooch, picking the hospital bed back up and helping Wilson back into it. Schaeffer stumbled over to the window and leaned out, a good slip and he would be done for. Shaking his head, he walked to the other side and pulled open the hallway curtains, people were running in every direction.

"We gotta get downstairs." He said, the others all glanced at each other

"Just help me move Wilson first, I don't want him getting hit by one of those bombs." He grabbed the side of Wilson bed and with the help of Riley, pushed. The bed slowly moved, the wheels turning into place. The bed squeaked as they went.

Schaeffer opened the door for them, and they carefully moved him into the hallway.

"Right here... don't worry, they won't forget me here." Said Wilson, and Hooch nodded, pressing the bed against the hallway wall. "Now go! Go!" He yelled, they ran back to the elevator.

The two ODST's were already in there with a handful of marines. The two slid their helmets on as a marine chose a floor, the door closed.

"Hold the door!" Schaeffer yelled as they ran, the ODST officer put her foot down and Schaeffer sighed in relief when the elevator doors didn't squeeze shut. He didn't have another trip on stairs in him after the bank.

The three slide in, the elevator starting to get a bit packed. The doors slid shut behind them and they breathed in some air, a marine corporal leaning against a wall in the back glanced at them before continuing his conversation. The corporal seemed sad, his notched helmet had a skull and crossed bones on it.

"They were shooting plasma someone said, I didn't think much of it. When communications were reestablished, they somehow got into our local frequency. Began shouting drivel into it, kept saying Covenant."

"What's the Covenant?" Asked the other marine.

"I think that's them." Schaeffer shook his head, the Covenant were shooting plasma, that was news. He turned from the conversation and looked at the ODST's.

"Thanks." He said, nodding to the officer, she shrugged. He looked around, there were four disgruntled marines from the northeast, a dejected Hooch, Mackenzie who looked to be asleep on the wall, Masih who was checking her finger nails and Riley who had somehow managed to weasel his way into the marines conversation. Not good talking company.

"I never caught a name..." he said, she seemed surprised he was talking, and glanced over.

"No, you didn't." Schaeffer shrugged and leaned against the wall.

"I'm Schaeffer." He said, pushing out a hand, her visor was depolarized and he could see her raise an eyebrow. She slowly gripped it and shook.

"No first name?" He took a moment to answer that,

"Leonard..." he said, she seemed unfazed and nodded.

"I'm First Lieutenant Mey-" there was a shaking and the lights flickered, she stumbled as her words were cut off. The elevator slowly began its descent again.

"What the hell was that?" Hooch asked,

"Bombardment. They got mortars everywhere, must of just moved them in range." Said the corporal. This was it then, they were about to get attacked.

Before he could turn back to the lieutenant, the elevator stopped and the doors opened to the hallway they had gone up previously. Everyone left, pushing past him. Sighing, he followed.

The lobby was different now, marines were sitting behind metal barricades and sandbag walls. He hadn't noticed the sandbags before, and he knew the barricades were new. Otherwise, they used flipped over tables and counters, for what little good they would do. There were only a few marines in the lobby, and Schaeffer guessed the main defense was outside. The area seemed clear of civilians.

They jogged outside and he almost slammed straight into Atterson, the sergeant breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them and pointed him towards some stacked crates that he claimed was Schaeffer's post. He didn't want to argue over the validity of calling stacked crates anything other than stacked crates and ran over.

The 'courtyard' was buzzing with even more activity. Marines all stood on some form of steps in order to see over the barricade, a Scorpion pointed its cannon at the opening and another sat in the tunnel to the back lot. The steel doors behind it were shut, and the lighting off. He guessed they were hoping to sneak up on anything that breached.

There was a horn blaring and then a truck slowly moved into the gap, when it was suitably blocked, the driver hopped out and ran over to his position.

Warthog turrets were raining hot shells over everything, trying to take down the Banshee's who constantly tested the building. Among them was something they couldn't stop, the bombardment of the alien mortars, huge blue balls of plasma slamming into the side of the hospital and killing anyone that happened to be in those rooms.

Finding his spot and climbing up, he stood straight and was able to see over the barricade of... stacked crates, fairly easily. The parking lot seemed clear, but the snipers kept yelling in the radio that something was coming. He checked the ammo of his weapon.

There was a long minute as he waited, sitting on the crates, when he saw what the snipers saw. Purple and blue flashed from the windows of a building down the street, and another, and before he knew it, blue and green plasma was lacing at the barricade. He ducked down, though the fire was inaccurate, and felt the crate he was leaning against heat up as the other side melted.

One of the Warthog gunners circled around to fire when a blue beam flew out, the man let out an animal screech and toppled over, his right arm gone and the stump melting and blistering from the heat. He fell off the hog and broke his neck.

"Sniper! Sniper!" Schaeffer yelled into his radio. There was another moment and he heard a loud crack, and he realized that it was their own sniper firing in response. Pelican's were still flying in and out, despite the Banshee's. Either landing on the roof or the back parking lot where Schaeffer guessed the main evacuation was taking place.

_"Oh shit."_ Someone said into the radio and Schaeffer leaned out again to see a tide of aliens come pouring out of the buildings. From down the street came small purple vehicles, piloted by Squat's. They let fire roar from twin cannons as they flew up to the barricade alongside the infantry. Above the alien wave, the fork like transports circled like ghosts... Phantom's. Unloading infantry into the parking lot or flying overhead to harass the evac sites.

_"Shoot! Open fire! Gun them down! Don't let them get to the damn wall!"_ Came the lieutenant's voice, up until now, the man had showed no fear or anxiety. His voice on the radio sounded desperate and scared. Schaeffer didn't feel much better.

The infantry in the front bore the strange alien shields, jogging up with them raised. Bullets deflected off of them and protected the aliens behind, as Schaeffer watched, he saw ones shield take a Warthog's burst and turn red before popping. The next bullet took out its bearer, and the rest moved to cover the area. The tons of Squat's and the Squid's leading them came up behind the Jackals, firing on the barricades as they went.

It was like something out of a book on ancient Rome.

_"Mortars!"_ Someone yelled into the radio, and he heard a pop from somewhere in the back lot. There was a screaming noise and then the mortar shells slammed into the ground, taking out large swathes of Covenant infantry. They charged on, undeterred They would be at the gates any minute now, and more kept swarming from the buildings. The small vehicles came up to the barricade and broke off, he saw a mortar come down right on top of one and the thing exploded in blue. Another Phantom flew in and dropped troops straight into the wave.

One tried to land in the 'courtyard' and was deterred when the Scorpion pointed its turret up and fired at the Phantom, followed by every Warthog and two different rocket launchers. The side of the transport tore open and it banked off, its infantry toppling out the left prong where they were stored. Schaeffer thought it would fly away but it seemed to have taken too much damage and after a moments hesitation, slammed into the parking lot. Crushing any Covenant unfortunate enough to be beneath it.

Another broke off when it saw the fate of its friend, and opted to just land troops in the parking lot instead. Schaeffer felt his rifle kick into his wounded shoulder as he shot, the rain was causing the bandage to get wet and he saw the water come down a bit red. Lighting struck down and the huge, overcast clouds made it seem later than it was.

Banshee's harassed them constantly, but none of them wanted to risk getting in range of the Warthog's AA turrets and only fired the occasional potshot as they flew past. Hornet's were in the air as well, mostly hovering around the back lot and defending the constant stream of Pelican's.

He kept firing, everyone on the line was firing now. Marksmen rifles, automatic weapons, it didn't matter. Every gun was popping the round shields of the Jackals or the personal ones of the Squid's, Squat's were dropping left and right and the bodies were piling in the lot as they got closer and closer.

When they got within a hundred feet or so, they began lobbing grenades into the 'courtyard.' Blue balls of plasma landing among the marines... or on them. They seemed to stick to surfaces by some alien mechanism, and he saw a marine scream as he couldn't tear it off before violently exploding.

One of the grenades landed on a Warthog, which detonated as its crew attempted to bail. Schaeffer lay on the crates behind the barricade, firing blindly over the defense and keeping his head down. The bodies on both sides were piling.

_"There are too many!"_ Someone shouted into the radio, and he saw an officer hop off his spot and run into the tunnel with the Scorpion, probably finding some side door to retreat through.

_"Hold your places god damn it!"_ Someone yelled, Schaeffer recognized the voice as the major they saw when they first entered, he didn't see him on the line.

Guns from the windows were firing, as were the snipers and the Warthog's. It didn't seem to be enough, and the aliens just kept coming. The shield bearers lowered their shields and the Squat's ran forward, screaming and roaring in blood lust. Schaeffer's eyes widened.

_Oh shit._ Was all he could think.

They had no actual entrance, so they climbed. Hundreds of Squat's finding footholds in the piled crates and vehicles and trying to pour over. Schaeffer tried gunning them down as they ran up, but he was too busy ducking from their fire to get a decent shot, there were too many of them regardless.

He fell down to reload, he only had two magazines left, he realized. Looking up, he saw black shapes in a window, one of them had a white stripe.

There was a snarl behind him and Schaeffer gasped as he caught a Squat coming over his portion of the barricade as he slammed in the mag, a bullet flew from the window and topped off the creatures head. Schaeffer glanced up for a second before turning back to his post.

Another one clambered up and Schaeffer swung the butt of his rifle into its face, its jaw cracking as it toppled over the side. They all had a stink to them, like methane, and he wanted to gag as the hundreds of Squat's filled the air with the scent.

_All the more reason to kill them_ he told himself, pointing the barrel of the rifle down, he fired in full auto at the climbing Grunt's. Three fell over and took down the six under them. Their places were quickly filled.

He fired again, taking out two more climbing Squat's and took his hand from the trigger. Reaching down, he pulled the frag grenade form its place on his belt, clicking the red button on the side and dropping it over. A blast later and a squads worth of Squat's were screaming in pain.

To his left, he saw the blue tide topple over the side of the barricade and into several marines sitting on a car. A Squid somehow found himself on top of the truck they blocked the barricade with, and more of the right was slowly giving. The tank was firing its coaxial machine gun, and the Warthog's were spraying their munitions into the Squat's as they came over the lip. It wasn't enough.

The Scorpion gunner must have panicked, or maybe got a bad order, or maybe was just stupid, because his next action doomed any chance of holding the line. The main cannon fired into the left, which at this point had mostly given to the alien onslaught. The crates, sandbags and the car which made up the portion of the barricade exploded outward. The blast and debris killed at least thirty Squat's, hundreds poured through the gap.

The line collapsed right then, marines, police, militia, armed civilians. All of them broke and ran when they saw that. Schaeffer kept firing, kept trying to hold the Squat's off. The butt of his rifle was dented in now, and covered with blue blood and a bit of brain. He would have kept shooting too if his rifle didn't begin making the sound every marine fears.

_Click. Click. Click._

"Fuck me." He said as another Squat came over the barricade, he jabbed the barrel into its beady eye and shoved it over, another came in, he broke the side of his head with the butt. Another, shoved him off with the side. Another. Another. Another. Schaeffer was crying as he desperately tried to hold them off. They were coming over in pairs now. Someone in the radio was screaming for them to retreat to the lobby.

He missed the Squat he swung at and received a punch from the creature, gasping, he stumbled back. He almost recovered when another one tackled him off, the air flying from his lungs as he slammed into the concrete. He thanked god he didn't take off his helmet.

The creature began punching, scraping, screaming. When Schaeffer punched it back, it swung its head down and bit into his wounded shoulder. Schaeffer screamed let out an animal cry as it tried to tear the flesh and uniform off.

His hand fell to his holster, and he remembered he had a sidearm. Sliding it out, he pressed it into the side of the Squat's head and fired, fired, and fired. A bullet went through the left side of the head and brains came out the right, proceeded by two more shells. The Squat looked up and coughed blood into his face before toppling over.

His hands found the ground and he pushed up, hardly finding purchase in the slippery concrete. When he was on his feet, he broke and ran towards the lobby. Gasping in pain from his arm.

The door was closing when he collapsed into the wall, slipping in the water. A hand reached out and pulled him in, the door slamming shut behind him. He coughed as he hit the ground, blood dripping from his shoulder.

A corpsman ran over and dragged him away, he groaned from the pain as the man hooked his arms, but didn't resist. He was pulled against a table and his bandage was removed, showing a slightly black scar with deep holes where the Squat's teeth had ripped into his flesh. The corpsman took out a canteen and poured it into the wound, bloody biofoam pouring out.

"We need to get this debris out of your shoulder..." he said, Schaeffer nodded, he could feel it digging into his flesh.

"But there isn't any time, here." He pulled out a vial of biofoam and shoved it in the wound, Schaeffer cried out in pain. He quickly bandaged it, and ran off.

"You prick." He said, he knew he read correctly. Biofoam wasn't meant to be a permanent solution, it stops constant pain for a few hours and helps seal it, but it didn't prevent infection and got dirty if left in the wound for too long. He would lose his arm at this rate.

Atterson ran over to him and patted him on his good shoulder before telling him to get ready to shoot. He watched the man run off towards someone else. Career military, mid to late forties, would gladly die for his nation. Schaeffer had to admit, he would be glad if Atterson died for his nation too.

Slowly he leaned over the pile of sandbags they had dragged him behind. It was the second in a line of six or so semicircle barricades. Marines, some ODST's, militia, police, the usual, all camped inside. All guns were pointing at the steel double doors which were locked electronically and had been blocked with as many misc items that they could find. The Squat's kept beating against it.

_"The hospital can not hold, repeat the hospital can not hold. All units are to hold their designated positions, any units tasked with evacuation duty are to continue to do so. All patients and civilian personell are to be moved to Pelican's on either the roof or in the private's lot, no exceptions."_ The major's voice was crisp and calm, the lieutenant was shouting orders to them in the middle of the lobby, assigning marines that were his and weren't his to where he saw fit.

That was more like what a leader should be. At the front. The lieutenant seemed like an uncaring dick, but he was one who wasn't afraid to be an uncaring dick in the line of fire. That was something.

Mackenzie fell in next to him, and so did Venendez. Their little fireteam.

"Glad to see you made it." Said Venendez, Mackenzie nodded too. The words surprised him, he guessed that the Smike incident had been forgotten in all of this.

"Glad myself, we lose anyone?" The words hurt his face, the burns stretching with his mouth, under his balaclava, Venendez shook his head.

"Don't know really, I think first squad got torn up bad. Most of them were on the left flank with the cops, got ditched when everyone ran. The tankers got knocked out too I think, didn't see them get out when we closed the doors." Mackenzie nodded again, before adding his own two cents.

"I accidentally tuned into the second platoon frequency, LT Galbraith got hit. Whiskey's in charge now, god help them all. Galbraith lost his arm apparently, and things are looking grim for him."

"You guys hear anything about the evac? How it's going?" Venendez shook his head.

"Nothing I could catch, Pelican's are coming in constantly, though I heard Hornet's are starting to drop, and without those hogs..." Schaeffer sighed, it meant that the LZ might suddenly be filled with crashed Pelican's and dead bodies.

"I'd say it's a good day to die, but the weather is terrible." Said Mackenzie, Schaeffer wanted to laugh but couldn't find it in him. Venendez looked hopeful all of a sudden.

"Last stand's don't always end in death... I mean, I read about this place called the Alamo once-" Schaeffer stopped him.

"I did too, they were all killed." Venendez cursed.

"Hey guys... they stopped." Mackenzie said, confusion in his voice. Schaeffer looked up suddenly, the metal door was no longer shaking.

_"What the fuck is that."_ Someone on the upper floors said into the radio. This had to be good.

"Here we go." Venendez sighed before leaning over the sandbags. They were just a bit to the right of the door, slightly off center. Around eighty feet or so back.

There was a pause, and after a minutes wait, something slammed into the door.

A dent appeared, the crates pushed in front of it moved back at the force of the slam. Another strike, the door screamed in protest as its motors tried to hold on. Another, the hinges broke, the double doors went flying. One of them knocked over the crates and the other took out a militiaman.

The alien that charged in almost made Schaeffer wet himself, it was almost ten feet tall, breaking the frame of the door as he smashed through. It was covered in heavy purple armor and carried a huge metal shield that nearly went from floor to head. Its other arm was a large gun, and its body under the armor showed pulsing orange worms.

Its cannon fired, Schaeffer watched in horror as it obliterated four marines, including Atterson, and their fortifications in the center. The men simply disintegrating at the massive beam of plasma, which carried on and burned through the wall at the back of the lobby. It charged out and swung with its shield at the closest humans, three militiamen and a marine, who were crushed as the metal slab broke them.

Another one slammed through the back, firing and taking out another fortification. Squat's and Squid's ran in after, firing all the way.

The last stand was ending quickly, the humans screaming as they tried to fight to survive. Everyone aimed for the tanks. The creatures were unfazed as bullets pinged harmlessly off their armor like stones. One bullet landed between its hip and body armor, slamming into the orange worms in its gut. The creature groaned in pain and killed another four men.

A man came up from behind the receptions desk with a missile launcher. He aimed for a moment and fired, the missile streaking out at the tank and smoke flying out from the back. The missile slammed into the exposed area of one of the tanks before exploding violently. Orange worms and blood came flying to the floor, and the alien toppled over, a decent sized hole in its gut.

The other one let out a guttural roar and began swinging wildly as his friend went down, taking out one barricade and then another The rampaging beast smashed through friend and foe alike, crushing Squat's and Squid's underneath its boots as it ran to murder the marines.

"Shit! Run! Run!" Someone yelled and this time, Schaeffer agreed with the sentiment. They were getting nowhere fast, and the Covenant were already outnumbering marines in the lobby. He grabbed the shocked Venendez by the back of his collar and ran after Mackenzie who had already began to retreat.

Plasma flew after him, one flew past him, around eight feet away and he felt the burns across his cheek flare and worsen.

They flew through some double doors, at some point they had managed to pick up some other running marines and three militiamen. The major was telling them to hold, the lieutenant was ordering a tactical withdrawal, everyone was running.

They passed the elevator and the stairwell when the doors to the stairs flew open and someone ran out, directly into him. He toppled over with the person and grunted as he slammed into the ground.

As he looked up, he realized he had toppled over with the ODST lieutenant, and the two looked at each other before Mackenzie ran over and yelled for them to get a move on. Marines and ODST's were streaming out of the stairwell and the hallway was getting full.

"Come on! Come on god damn it! Let's GO!" He grabbed Schaeffer's arm and pulled him up, and Schaeffer grabbed the lieutenant and did the same. They caught up with Venendez and the four ran out together.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" Someone screamed from another hallway, and Schaeffer saw a black gloved hand waving over the crowd. The lieutenant patted him on the back and broke off to meet with the other ODST. Schaeffer hoped she would be alright.

They kept running through hallways until they found an exit exit door, two double doors which led to the back parking lot. They shoved past a marine who was ushering everyone through and burst through the doors. There was a stone overhang and fat pillars down the side of the building, in front of him, there was a moderately sized parking lot. The lot was encased by buildings, and the only way in besides the doors was the tunnel from the other lot.

The tunnel had been sealed by large blast doors. Schaeffer wondered why exactly a hospital needed those, was it built with defense in mind? He didn't think about it long however, he had more important things to worry about.

"Hey! Hey you guys!" Red and Busy ran up to them, clutching rifles in tight fists. Red was panting, but continued, "what the hell is happening? Why aren't you holding the front?"

"Red we-" Venendez started but Schaeffer cut him off.

"The front is GONE god damn it. There is huge tank monsters made of fucking worms and hundreds of Squat's and Squid's and..." he trailed off, realizing he sounded insane, Venendez continued.

"We are getting out of there, we just lost half the company in three minutes." Red paled, Busy rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"We don't have enough Pelican's to get all the civilians that were here, we don't have enough for the entire building." Schaeffer looked over to see crowds of civilians being moved onto the Pelican's like cattle, occasionally a Hornet would drop down and pick up some people, or a man in a stretcher would be ran out of the building and thrown into a Pelican. Whenever a Pelican lifted off, it seemed to leave an even bigger crowd.

He looked behind him, there were sandbag fortifications set up facing the doors, and a few marines aiming their weapons at the building. The Scorpion also sat in the lot, though it was completely surrounded by running civilians and the driver was leaning out of the hatch, shouting for them to get out of his way.

"We need to get fortified." Everyone looked at him, confused.

"The LT is god knows where, the major is a prick, I don't even know what happened to the captain after we got here and Atterson is dead. We need to take charge of this shit because it doesn't look like anyone is.

"I don't think we should-" Busy started, but Venendez cut him off.

"McBee, you're a first sergeant. You're the highest ranking person I can see, unless Summers can come out of nowhere." Busy glanced at them, a worried look in his eyes. Galbraith really was dead, he realized.

"Alright. Alright. I'll take over until someone gets here. What do you guys recommend?" This gave them stall, Schaeffer recalled some book he read. Whether it was military history or psychology he couldn't remember.

"The second they start shooting, these civies are going to stampede. We gotta get them out of the building and away from those doors when the Covenant take them down. We gotta bolster defenses too, those sandbags won't last, especially if they have more of those... things we fought." Busy nodded quickly, Venendez piped up.

"The radio is tons of pilots screaming about how fucked the situation is, and our air cover is collap-" they ducked down as a Hornet flew past, being strafed by two Banshee's. One of its propellers exploded and the helicopter spun to the ground before violently crashing, somewhere just beyond the lot.

"Speak of the devil, our air cover is going to hell. Someone needs to organize it before pilots start trying to bail." Mackenzie took his turn.

"Everyone is disorganized as high hell. They're like chickens with their heads cut off. You should try and meet up with everyone else, the other sergeant's. The sooner this is in order, the sooner we get out of here." Busy continued nodding.

"Alright. Alright. Mackenzie, track down the other sergeant's, or corporals if the sergeant's are dead. Tell them to meet up with me." Mackenzie gave a mock salute and jogged away, grabbing Red to help him out. "Venendez, one of the Pelican pilots had to land his Pelican a block or so away when he took too many hits. He's over there," he pointed over to an area in the corner, where a man in pilot fatigues was helping some civilians towards the Pelicans, "have him tell you the pilots frequencies, try to talk them around. This will go a lot faster with someone on the ground."

"Aye, aye." Said Venendez who began pushing through the crowds.

"Schaeffer, get to the front. Try to see what you can do with our defenses, and try to get as many people through as you can." Schaeffer's eyes widened, and he threw his hands up.

"No, no, no. I'm just a private's, I can't lead anything. Ever." Busy put a hand on his good shoulder, reassuringly.

"Schaeffer, you've done good today. Most of the company seems to like you and you know... some things. My squad was given the front, and the highest person left beside me is Lance Corporal Butcher. Just tell him I sent you, help me out here." It was hardly orthodox, and Schaeffer didn't know where to start. But he had a feeling he didn't have much choice.

"Alright. Alright I'll do it." And he broke off to the sandbags.

There were five marines holding the area. The name tape showed a Barbosa, Lowe, Ortega and Butcher, there was also some marine from the northeast helping. He ran up to Butcher and tapped his shoulder to get his attention, the marine turned and scowled.

"What do you want?"

"McBee sent me, wants me to organize this." He swept his hand through the air in a dramatic gesture, showing the meager defenses

"Busy sent you?" The scowl faded, "alright I guess. What do you need us to do?" Schaeffer breathed out in relief, he was afraid he would have to fight for it. He turned around and scanned the area,

"There are some crates in the corner back there. They don't have any use just sitting there, and we need to block these doors to funnel them through..." he looked around some more, and saw an abandoned Warthog sitting in front of the tunnel, its turret abandoned and pointing at the sky.

"Pull that hog up, get the turret pointed at that door and block the rest... if you manage to do all that, try and get the civies out in a line." Butcher nodded and jogged to the other marines, giving orders. Schaeffer looked around and his eyes found the Scorpion, he ran over.

The people were swarming all over it, and the tanker was screaming from his perch for them to get out of the way. Schaeffer climbed the Scorpion until he was with the driver.

"I'm going to need that!" He screamed over the roar of the crowd and the engines, the tanker looked over, confused.

"Your sidearm!" The tan skinned man glanced around before he reached into the the hatch and slid an SMG from somewhere inside before handing it to Schaeffer. He didn't respond when the man asked what he was going to do with it.

The bullets flew out from the SMG and into the air, the crowd screamed and ducked, he took the following moment of silence to shout out his orders.

"Everyone is to move away from the Scorpion immediately, if you do not move, you will be crushed. Please get away, this is for YOUR protection." The civilians seemed nervous but he hopped down and used the SMG to shove them towards where they needed to go. He grabbed a passing officer and militiaman and enlisted their help while he was at it. With the three shoving and yelling, a path was cleared for the tank.

He turned and faced the tank, waving it forward. The driver saluted and slid into the vehicle before slamming down the top, the lights blinked on to help them see through the rain and fog, then the treads began to move. Schaeffer pointed them towards an empty area in one of the corners of the lot, it wasn't in the way of the Pelican's and it had a decent angle on the door. It would do.

As he looked over, he saw the marines start dropping the crates in front of the doors, two marines carrying at a time. The crates were big, about five feet both ways, the marines stacked them on top of each other and completely covered the doors. Schaeffer hoped the tanks would decide to go through the open one.

He saw headlights flicker on and Butcher steered the Warthog in front of the door, around a hundred feet back. Crates were pushed over in order to completely block off everything besides the turret, Barbosa. quickly slid into the machine gun. There were still some crates left.

"Bolster the sandbags with those crates! Come on!" He yelled, and Butcher quickly relayed it to the marines. Schaeffer shoved through civilians and into the doorway. He began to shout.

"If you wish to get onto a Pelican, move calmly and quickly in an orderly manner. Those who rush will be left behind." Scattered gunfire came from down the hallways, the civilians were finally slowing down...

Then he heard the alien tanks cannon fire and an explosion, smoke flying down the hallway the civilians were coming from in a plume. Everyone screamed and panicked, the civilians in front not being allowed on the Pelican's by the marines and the civilians in back trying to get away from the carnage behind them. The civilians in the middle were crushed.

Plasma streaked from the side halls, people were rushing, trampling. Schaeffer found himself swept with them, out of the building.

"Everyone get READY!" He screamed, then again into the radio. They would be there any minute. The few marines he had with him dispersed behind the sandbags and crates, aiming at the door. When he saw them, he grabbed armed civilians or militiamen and tried to drag them to the barricades. Most broke off towards the Pelican's, but four of them nervously moved into cover.

Then they were there, the last of the civilians screamed or ran out as Squat's swarmed over them, the men opened fire immediately. Cutting down four of the short creatures and a civilian who didn't' move in time. A Squid ran through the entrance and the Warthog's turret and the Scorpion's coaxial machine gun both spat out everything they had, the creature screamed as its shield popped and it died.

The enemies bodies were piling onto the concrete, their blue blood mixing with the rain puddles and running in rivulets across the concrete.

"Hold the breach!" He screamed, "hold the breach for Christ's sake!" Squat's jerked and twitched the second they stepped out of the doorway, Squid's shields popped before they could aim or direct their forces. Some of the Squat's tried to run back inside at the carnage but ran straight into their allies and were cut down. It was a massacre.

Then he heard a roar and the tank slammed through one of the crate barricades, chunks of wall flying out as he broke through. Schaeffer fumbled with his radio.

"Tank! TANK! FIRE!" He screamed it into the area broadcast, anyone in a mile radius could hear the order.

The monster fired its cannon and tore through the side of a retreating Pelican. People fell out the hole, screaming as they burned and fell and the bird swung wildly out of control, barely avoiding a second one before flying into the distance. He heard it crash.

The next moment it turned its gun on Schaeffer and the firing marines, he was dea-

He heard a crack of thunder, or what he thought was thunder, and the side of the monster was completely blown away. Its shield was twisted and black, the orange worms of its flank were blown away and its armor tore into its body where the shell impacted. It screamed in pain and stumbled over, trying to use its shield as balance. After a moment, it swayed and collapsed, orange blood pooling around it. The driver of the tank leaned out of the hatch and gave a thumbs up before falling back inside.

The monster was finally dead, but the damage was done however. More Covenant streamed through the breach it had created. A police officer next to him, firing with his magnum and screaming in rage, dropped as plasma disintegrated his skull. Lowe shouted a warning and cried out as plasma slammed into her and burned through her breastplate. She squirmed as she died.

Schaeffer fired a burst into the enemies coming out of the right side, and another in the left, slowly walking backwards in his crouched position. Looking behind him, he saw a small number of civilians still waiting for Pelican's, most of the ones who had been waiting were now dead in the crossfire.

"Get them in those Pelican's! Go! Go!" He shouted to the other fighters, they looked at him and nodded before running off. Schaeffer was alone.

"Come and get me god damn it!" He screamed, he was dead. He was doomed. He wasn't a hero, but if he was going to die, he wanted to be remembered as one. He clicked his assault rifle from burst to full auto and cut down the two Squat's who got too close. The Scorpion fired again and blasted a crowd of them, and the Warthog turret was still going.

A shot laced out and nearly hit him, Schaeffer barely avoiding it by sliding to the ground as it flew overhead. He rolled out from behind his cover and continued firing from the prone position, hoping to kill as many as he could.

_"Schaeffer, we got room for everyone, get on!"_ McBee screamed in the radio, he glanced back, the civilians were all inside and the marines were running into the waiting Pelican's.

"Shit." He said, and turned and ran. The tankers pushed their vehicle forward, trying to push the Covenant back when a banshee flew overhead, dropping its bomb. The plasma slammed into the Scorpion's flank, the turret sagging down at an angle as smoke rose up.

The driver climbed out of the hatch and pulled out the gunner as he did. The two fell to the ground and came running to the Pelican's, Schaeffer fell to a knee as the two dived into the bird, being pulled in by the waiting marines, Barbosa followed them shortly.

"Schaeffer come on!" Someone screamed, and he got ready to run inside when he saw her.

Four ODST's running on the top floor, plasma flying out the broken windows as they were chased. One of them was hit square in the back and dropped like a sack of rocks, the other three turned to fire and realized they were trapped.

They looked out at the evacuation site and after a moment, ran. A corpsman was hit in the side and tripped, falling out and breaking his neck. The other two fell more squarely, he heard a snap when one of them screwed up her fall.

It was the ODST from the elevator.

The other turned to help her but ducked down and ran to the Pelican when plasma fire raced at him. Looking back, the last of the Pelican's were lifting off.

Schaeffer was never a brave man, he never claimed to be and never saw himself as one. All day he had been doing stupid things that people had called brave, because other people told him to or because he had no choice. This time, it was his choice.

He chose.

"Schaeffer god damn it!" McBee screamed as he ran towards her, his legs aching from a days fighting. The rain whipped at his face and soaked his balaclava even more, he felt chilled to a bone, it had to be below zero, and the rain wasn't helping things.

He slipped on a puddle and barely recovered, he heard gunfire behind him but he ignored it, and instead tried to focus on ignoring the pain in his face as the plasma whizzed by. He fell to his knees and slid.

"Hey." He said, her visor was polarized, but he could tell she was confused. He pushed his arms under her body and with all of his strength, lifted. Groaning in pain as his shoulder flared and the wound opened further. Ignoring it, he slid her over his back in a fireman's carry and began running.

Some marines had abandoned the Pelican, Red, Mackenzie, Masih, Hooch. He saw a door gunner blasting the turret on full auto, and McBee was leaning out, picking the encroaching Covenant off with his magnum.

He ran into the Pelican, slamming through the door gunner who stumbled to the side but continued gunning. Hands were grabbing him, stopping him from tripping as he fell inside.

The marines outside quickly broke and ran, plasma was slamming into the hull of the Pelican, and he saw what looked like some sort of alien rocket launcher carried by the Squat's. The door gunner did too, thank god, and tore the creature apart before it could aim.

The Pelican slowly began to lift off, McBee was shouting into his radio about something, and Schaeffer heard the term danger closed be thrown around. As they flew over the buildings surrounding the lot and away, he saw two Shortsword's fly in, black dots dropping from the bays.

The hospital exploded as they flew off, the back collapsing on top of the Covenant forces, the rest being dragged down with it. By the time their view of the hospital was gone, the only remaining part was the front.

The doors slowly closed, and they were enveloped in darkness. Schaeffer was laying on the floor, pinned by the ODST's body. He looked over at her.

"I never... got that... name." He panted out between breaths, her visor depolarized and she looked at him like a madman.

"Meyers." She said, and slowly pulled herself off of him.

"God damn Schaeffer. You really are a hero." He heard McBee say as someone dragged him into an empty seat. Most of the faces here were unfamiliar. There were the tankers, the ODST, Butcher, Masih, Red, Hooch, McBee and Barbosa. Otherwise, there was a decent number of militia and police men, and two doctors who nervously sat in the back.

"Sweet Christ." Said Red, Masih glanced at him and then back at the woman.

"You sure you don't have a crush?" The whole Pelican glared at her and she coughed nervously.

_"We'll be flying to the rally point at Clive Industrial, so we got a half hour or so till we get there. Sit tight."_ The pilots voice came crisp over the radio, Schaeffer looked around again.

"Get some sleep, you deserve it." Said McBee. He looked at Meyers, who smiled at him.

Sighing, he lowered his balaclava and closed his eyes. His burns screamed in pain, as did his arm and his legs and his lungs. Schaeffer decided he didn't care anymore.


	7. Chapter 7: Planet Fall

**Chapter Seven: Planet Fall**

_Epsilon Indi System_ _UN Colony: Second Base_ _Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer_ _Retreating to UNSC rally point_

The constant jolts and shaking kept Schaeffer from enjoying his short nap, so did the adrenaline still pumping through his veins and the constant image of the piles of civilians dead in the lot, the memory still fresh on his brain. Graphic images were not new, Monroe dying had occasionally flickered up when he closed his eyes, the bullet slicing through his neck and nearly taking off his head. On top of that, the memory of them holding out against the rebels in the bank liked to push its way to the front of his brain. Marines being torn to shreds, people screaming and crying and praying...

Sighing, Schaeffer rolled his shoulders and once again tried to fall asleep. In the heat of battle, in the midst of war, when the adrenaline pumps through your veins and you don't know whether moving an inch will take your arm or save your life, details get lost. You glaze over them because if you stop to wonder or begin to think about it, you die, and you forget. Schaeffer had hardly noticed the bodies, piled practically on top of each other. Civilians, man, woman and child, covering the ground between doorway and pelican. Schaeffer had glazed over this and jumped over the bodies, the only thought about them being that they had bought him a spot on a pelican.

As Schaeffer sat there, he smelt burnt flesh wafting to his nose, heard the moans and cries of the dying and saw the sizzling and bubbling as the plasma burned through the skin and melted the fat. The blackened bones and the glazed over eyes, arms holding luggage or loved ones, some still squirming and groaning, despite the smoke rising from them and the stench of decay already rising into the air. Schaeffer only remembered it now, and he remembered it as if he was there, and it scared him.

Finally, his eyelids started to shut and the images of the bodies were kind enough not to resurface. He had stayed up, the morning he came to Second Base, what felt like years ago had only been less than four hours or so. He had been tired when he got to the planet, having stayed up reading some stupid book. He felt himself fall into the sweet escape of sleep.

_"I see the rally point now, ETA is fifteen seconds."_ Schaeffer didn't curse, he didn't feel angry, he just felt empty. He slowly opened his eyes and stared at the black pair of boots in front of him, he wanted to go home. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to die. The boots moved forward, the bay of the pelican blinking a brighter red. There was a shaking, someone called his name, the light turned off and another, darker one, filled the area. He smelt rain.

The smell of decay and death, burnt flesh, all mixed with the wet ground. People crying in pain, a child clutching a mothers hand, both of their heads fried practically to ash. Crying and screaming and hell, it was hell, the world was hell, he was in hell, he was going to die in hell-

"Schaeffer!" Someone shouted, a hand shaking him away from his thoughts. He blinked twice, everybody was staring at him and everyone besides the lieutenant was standing. Most of them were gathered around him. His head shot around the bay, a frown creasing his face. The smell was gone, so were the sounds.

"Sorry..." he said, slowly getting to his feet. He helped Meyers to hers and with the other ODST, walked her out of the pelican, behind fifteen or so marines. McBee kept glancing over with a worried look in his face, though everyone seemed to have forgotten about him already. Her arm lay on his shoulders, and Schaeffer grinded his teeth as he handled most of her weight. Her armor dragging him into the dirt. She walked at a limp, her foot twisted at the ankle. The biofoam was beginning to wear off already, and he felt a light prickly sensation in his wounded shoulder.

Three other ODST's ran up and took Meyer's off his hands. She smiled her thanks but the others dragged her off before she could say anything to Schaeffer. When he stood there, he realized he was alone.

The marines had all scattered, saying hello to friends who they didn't see to the hospital or ones they thought hadn't made it in their retreat. Civilians were being herded into groups for reasons that Schaeffer couldn't care less about.

The rally point was ramshackle, they had been dropped into the loading dock of some sort of factory building on the south side of town. The war hadn't reached the area yet, and he heard constant gunfire and explosions from just about everywhere else. Marines watched over the LZ from the various platforms around the loading docks, and the docks were swarmed with the confused evacuees. Pelicans were landing from all over the city, so were Hornets. Night had also began to fall, the the last hints of the sun, a reddish hue in the sky, were slowly being replaced by the thousands of lights of the city.

The rest of the company had been lost in the crowds, and the ODST's had dragged Meyer's away somewhere. Sighing, Schaeffer went to shoulder his rifle when he realized it was somewhere at the hospital. He stared forward for a moment, wondering what he would do before he heard a Hornet begin to land directly overhead, he stumbled out of the way as it touched down.

The lieutenant and the captain hopped off, along with Sergeant Gaffer and another marine that he didn't know. A second Hornet followed soon after, and a few others from first platoon slid off the seats. Schaeffer was pleasantly surprised, he had figured they were all dead at the hospital. He raised a hand to get them to notice him, but Gaffer just sneered and shoved past, walking to the closest building which seemed to have been repurposed as some sort of forward base. The lieutenant glanced around and walked up to him, the captain following Gaffer.

"Private Schaeffer, pleasant to see you're still alive." Schaeffer told him the same, rubbing the back of his neck. After a moment, he asked what what had been on his mind, giving up on finding a soft way to put it.

"Where the hell were you?" He realized that he had put too much spite in his voice and the lieutenant's eyes darkened considerably.

"My men decided to break and run and I was stranded in the front of the hospital. I had to fight my way out of a side door and through the streets until some pilots took pity. Even then, I had to leave behind a team of men." Schaeffer went a bit more pale than he normally did, if so was possible. He stared at the lieutenant for a second before looking down at his feet, unsure of what else to do. The lieutenant shook his head and seemed to forget about the incident.

"What happened in the back? I doubt command can tell us anything you don't know." Schaeffer glanced back up and then around, wishing he was fighting the Covenant instead of talking to the lieutenant, the man's dark brown eyes seeming to size him up with every bit of movement.

"We... there was this huge... you saw. We broke off to the back lot, get everyone out... get ourselves out. When we got there, all the highers were dead and gone... besides McBee. We got him to take charge and he had me organize our defenses and stuff..." Schaeffer trailed off, the lieutenant kept staring at him with those blank and emotionless eyes. He rolled his wrist, indicating for Schaeffer to continue.

"Sir... there were at least a hundred civilians still there and only two pelicans..." he took a breath, about to mention the massacre when Gaffer came strolling right back out of the command post, he ignored Schaeffer and instead faced the lieutenant, who shot a worried look at Schaeffer before turning to his XO.

"Sir, command wants eight men to aid in the evacuation." The lieutenant raised an eyebrow.

"Evacuation?"

"Yes sir, the civilians are all being taken out of here. Command gave up on flying civilians into anti air and we are going by ground instead. Covenant have the whole city surrounded, so we are going by the old tunnels." The lieutenant glanced at the end of the dock where the civilians were being herded into whatever transport was available, Schaeffer followed the gaze. Meat for the meat grinder.

"And they are driving us through the tunnel and to...?" Gaffer only had a shrug for that.

"No idea, sir. But our benevolent commander wants us out in the hour, Major Sorelsky is going to be leading us." The lieutenant sighed and then shook his head.

"Sorelsky is only going to steer this convoy into a brick wall. Figuratively and literally, knowing him. What about Major O'Neil?" Gaffer thought for a moment before shaking his own head, a sour look on his face. Though Schaeffer could swear he always had it.

"O'Neil is fucking around in the government sector. He is leading some men to take back city hall and disarm the bomb before it blows this hole." The lieutenant was silent, thinking.

"Command wants eight men for evac duty? Schaeffer, you're good with evacuations. You're volunteered." Schaeffer's eyes lit up and he tried to say no but realized the lieutenant had already forgotten him. "I want Reznikov, Greene, Omerta, Batteh, Carriol, Matterson and Blater there too." Gaffer frowned.

"Blaters been out of action since the warthog crushed him this morning. And Omerta disappeared in the hospital, shifty little shit probably deserted." The lieutenant frowned but then nodded, remembering the dead and missing. Schaeffer wondered if the man hadn't cared enough to remember.

"Get Monday and Kelano on it. They're one man teams right now." Gaffer saluted and called out to a nearby marine, the woman walked over and Gaffer gave her the names, before sending her off to find them. He looked over to Schaeffer and nodded towards the command post, distaste in his eyes.

"Move it, what the fuck are you waiting for?" Schaeffer suppressed a sigh and walked inside. Evacuation duty couldn't be that bad. What would he do? Tell people to get into cars? He walked inside and waited in the room, some glass on the other side showed him a view of a large warehouse, about forty feet into the ground and filled with crates. A door close by led to a catwalk and he saw marines in various states of dress walking across it. In the room, some sort of control room once, marines and police officers walked around, exchanging reports and viewing the bulky mobile computers that the UNSC issued to battalions

He waited for ten minutes or so before the marines all filed in, Red and Hooch waved but Schaeffer ignored them. After a few more minutes, some captain from some company he didn't know about greeted them and gave them his name. Schaeffer forgot it as soon as he heard but Captain Whatshisname told them to follow him and walked right back out of the command post. The marines all moved as reluctantly as they could manage.

The captain walked them towards another building, through the halls, through a large garage and then up some stairs, all the way to the roof. When they made it to the fifth floor, Schaeffer decided he would never climb a stair again when he was done with the corps and stumbled after the captain. His feet were aching and his mind was begging him to stop moving.

The captain nodded to a marine leaning against a wall next to a shut door. The man glanced at them all and then clicked a button on a keypad, the door quickly sliding up. The eight marines found themselves on a flat rooftop, nestled amongst the other buildings in the industrial park. On the roof, four Hornets hovered, their propellers beating lightly and raising the vehicles around a foot or so off the ground. Schaeffer's heart sunk. He wasn't going to be shoving civilians into cars.

"Right. The convoy is moving out in half of an hour on the dot. You boys are going to be providing air support with some good old DMRs. You'll pick off any hostiles you can, and then fly off to Fort Darkat." He referenced the base Schaeffer had came to the planet on, Schaeffer shook his head at the memory.

"Two men a Hornet, we got rifles and their ammunition in that crate over there." He lazily pointed to a box which had been pushed to the side of the Hornets. Schaeffer glanced around and then slowly raised his hand.

"Can I not do this?" He asked, Kelano snorted, the captain frowned.

"I asked for volunteers. You all volunteered. Was your choice, don't start whining about it because you remembered your fear of heights, kid." Schaeffer was about to tell him that he was in fact not a volunteer, when the man turned around and walked towards the vehicles. The Hornet's pilots worked at the controls in the cockpits, ignoring the marines. The captain slapped the side of the closest Hornet, the pilot glared daggers into the back of the mans head.

The captain leaned over and clutched a bunch of straps and cords. "Right, these straps should be easy enough to get on. Just push your legs through these holes, do the buckle over again with the straps, tug until your balls pop..." he noticed Kelano, the only female in the group. He lowered the brim of cap like some sort of gay cowboy, "sorry ma'am, didn't notice you."

Red hardly suppressed a laugh and the captain continued on. "It also has arm straps here so that you don't just spill out, you will loop the strap of your rifle into those so that you don't drop it in the flight. The harness is connected to the Hornet by this chord..." he gripped the rope and shook it, "nothing short of a bullet will cut through this thing. Should give you some wiggle room and keep you from toppling out. Any questions?" No one said a word. The captain happily clapped his hands.

"Right, two men per Hornet, get some of those rifles and some clips and then get harnessed. Convoy is leaving in twenty. Oh, and there are some earplugs by the rifles, along with night vision goggles, get those on." They all glanced around before walking towards the crates. Schaeffer pulled one of the weapons from the crate and tested the weight, they learned how to use the rifles in boot, though he was still used to his assault rifle. He then found the ear plugs, which was less plug and more radio and pushed them into his ears, wincing at how uncomfortable they were. After some more searching, Schaeffer found the goggles, they were built to fit on the mount at the top of his helmet and Schaeffer clicked it in easily enough. Red called out to him from the Hornet in the back and sighing, Schaeffer walked over.

The Slavic marine asked Schaeffer to buckle him in, and cursed in some harsh sounding language when Schaeffer pulled the straps as tight as he could. Schaeffer didn't have to know his language to understand it was directed at him. When he was finished, Red unbuckled one side of the DMD's strap, looped it through his arm harness, reconnected the strap and then gripped it in his hands. Smiling nervously.

Schaeffer walked to the other side and sat down on the metal flank. He felt nervous already, though the beating of his heart began to slow as he buckled himself in. After several minutes of screwing around, he managed to get the harness as tight as it would go and the rifle strap through the arm strap. He was as ready as he would be and the hornet hovered a bit more now that the marines were on, Schaeffer saw the point of a barrel sticking out from under the nose and a heavy machine gun and a missile pod were mounted on the wing behind him. Definitely not police hornets, he thanked god for the plugs.

Another minute and they were being lifted from the rooftop, the captain shouting for the pilots to get a move on before saluting to the marines, Rat flipped him the bird in response. Lights flickered inside the cockpit and the last reds of the sky had gone, replaced by darkness, meanwhile, the rain was the hardest it had been all day. He felt it freezing when it slapped against his skin and he raised his balaclava. It didn't help much, already having been soaked.

The hornets got higher and higher and the view took Schaeffer's breath away. Night had descended and the lights of the city had still come on automatically thanks to the cities AI. The lights sparkled and twitched in the night and red light was washed over tons of buildings as fires spread across the city. Plasma flew into the sky, blue and green light following it where it went like some sort of light show. Tracers did as well, and he saw the blinking of lights on pelicans and hornets. An explosion in the distance painted everything around it orange, and a whole area of the city went black as a skyscraper collapsed. Not too far away, the orbital elevators lights twinkled. Fires were lacing up the side of it and Schaeffer could see explosions around the edge. Some marines must have been holding off from the inside. _They're doomed..._ he thought to himself solemnly

The hornet rotated a bit and followed the others, lowering again so it was hovering over the loading dock. Schaeffer's heart was pounding, he had never flew on the outside of the vehicle and he never exactly wanted to either. The view wasn't worth the cold and the fear. Down below in the land of the walking, tons of headlights were flicked on, stretching out beyond the buildings. Schaeffer lowered the goggles until they hugged his eyes, and with the flick of a switch his vision was bathed in green.

The convoy really was huge, the hornet raising again and hovering over the street most of the convoy had stretched into. There were three scorpions at the front and two in the back, nearly twenty transport hogs sat, along with ten or so with turrets. Among them, large trucks and civilian cars waited, filled to the brim with people. Despite the number of cars, columns of marines still had to move to either side of it the convoy, to save space or to offer more defense Schaeffer didn't know. As the hornets hovered in position, the front scorpion honked its horn and the treads began to turn, Schaeffer glanced around in the green light, looking for contacts.

The area seemed clear however and the vehicles all began moving, slowly. Schaeffer wondered who thought this was a good idea, it would be safer if the cars just sped down the road and into the tunnels, not if they slowly went by with some scorpions. Whatever protection the scorpions provided was useless when they were going to get slammed by all the explosives the Covenant could muster. They wouldn't even have to aim to kill thirty men.

The Hornets hovered some more, Schaeffer could vaguely hear the whishing of their rotor, though he could have been imagining it. The radio was silent besides the occasional report or the major handing out orders. The convoy moved on for almost half an hour when Schaeffer began to doze off.

His eyes shot up when he heard a crack and the sound of plasma being discharged. His radio suddenly exploding with reports of contact. The Hornet spun him towards the direction of the ambush and he saw blindingly bright plasma flying at the Warthogs, who had began firing in response.

Schaeffer raised the rifle and aimed, he could see Squats running around behind windows, a Squid directing them. He held his breath for a moment and squeezed, the rifle immediately kicking into his shoulder. The bullet flew out and slammed into the frame of one of the windows, he waiting for a second and then fired again, a Squat dropping. One of the Hornets spun around, lowered and opened up with its three machine guns, the side of the building exploding into dust as the bullets tore through the concrete and brick. The Covenant were ripped to shreds.

When the enemy didn't return fire, the lead Scorpion once again began moving at an order from Major Sorelsky. Dust kicked up as the hundred vehicles moved, the hornet twisted and spun before righting itself and moving over the convoy. Schaeffer wanted to puke. They went on in silence for a bit.

_"Uh, pilot. I see something."_ Red said, nervousness creeping into his voice, after he received no reply he continued on. "Big vehicles, moving around the plaza to the northeast. I think they are some sort of mortars." As soon as he finished, the pilot's voice came over the convoy radio, she seemed tired and bored.

_"Viper Two to Champion Actual, we have hostile mortars setting up at Tillman's Square to the northeast. I see about three."_ There was silence for a minute and then Sorelsky came over the radio.

_"Viper Two and Viper Three, divert course and take out the mortars. Over."_

_"Copy Champion, moving on the attack."_ The hornet broke off and flew to the northwest, another one following close behind. Schaeffer gulped and shook his head, he was amazed he had landed that shot, his movement sluggish from his shortly lived rest... or lack thereof. He felt hot and stuffy under his uniform, though his face was numb from the cold. He was thankful for the night vision goggles, the tools helping block his eyes from the whipping downpour.

They were deeper into the city now and a constant sound of explosions and gunfire was coming to his ears, muffled by the plugs. The sounds set his nerves on edge, screaming and plasma putting his mind back at the hospital evacuation. He wondered how many of those civilians were down in the convoy behind them, and how many had family that were dead because he didn't hold off the Covenant long enough.

The hornet spun again and Schaeffer saw an old plaza, a small park in the center, the fences flattened by something or another. A Scorpion sat to a side, blasted nearly in half by plasma. Broken fortifications, bodies which were just as broken if not more so, littered the ground at where the road met the plaza or in the entrances of buildings and alleys. There were large purple... radio towers, if he ever saw them. Two antennae sprouting out of a purple base, close by those, green barrel like items sat, around four feet tall.

They gave the rest of the plaza a glow and Schaeffer could see Squats, Squids and Jackals running around in the glow. Among them, large bulky tank like objects were floating a foot or so off the ground, bulbous and purple. Some type of mortar on top fired huge blue balls of plasma at their targets. When the infantry heard the chopping of the Hornet's rotors, they looked up and opened fire into the darkness. The hornet swung to a side and avoided the plasma as the other one lined up. After a moment of dodging and steadying, they both unleashed a salvo of rockets. Schaeffer's ears let out a sharp ping afterward, despite his plugs.

The Covenant position exploded as the rockets impacted, plasma soaring up from the wrecks of the mortars when they were hit, detonating into blue energy, the infantry were torn to shreds, and the green barrels exploded as well. The facade of a building on one side of the plaza crumbled and fell over, dust flying up as the bricks shattered on the concrete and slid into the huge craters. Schaeffer spotted figures running off into the distance and fired at their backs. One of the retreating Squats fell over and tried to crawl. Schaeffer didn't bother finishing it off.

_"This is Viper Two, fire mission is complete. All hostiles dead, returning to formation."_ There was static in response, Schaeffer saw tracers lighting up the sky in the street where the convoy would be. The Hornets began to fly faster. _"This is Viper Two, this is Viper Two. Where are you Champi-"_

_"For Christ's sake Viper, where the hell are you? The convoy is getting pounded and you're screwing around! Move!"_ The pilot began to sigh over the radio before turning it off, Schaeffer gripped the side of the flank with one hand as they sped along.

When they got there, the convoy was a mess. Four vehicles in the front had slammed into each other and the Scorpion, marines were scattered all along the cars and firing at something or another, the small Covenant scout vehicles from the hospital were circling and avoiding the marines fire, raining plasma on the convoy. Covenant infantry fired from several different windows, and were advancing down the road ahead. Schaeffer could see the entrance to the tunnels in the distance.

The hornet lowered and opened up with her guns on one of the buildings, tearing it apart as had happened previously. Schaeffer fired inside for good measure, though he was sure that he had little effect. As their Hornet stopped firing, another one of the Hornets zipped by and Schaeffer could see a marine he didn't recognize firing down with his DMR.

Two of the Scouts exploded as a Hornet flew by, unloading a payload of rockets. He heard a shout on the radio and more Covenant came pouring out of a park close to the middle of the convoy. He raised his rifle and spotted a Squid's shield pop, before the beast hopped back into cover. It hadn't thought of the Hornets however, and two shots later and it was on the ground. Another Hornet whizzed by yet again, firing its guns and ripping apart the Covenant's cover, the aliens continued to charge.

_"This is Slumdog! I got bandits all over my tail, shit!"_ A Hornet flew low and twisted and turned, two of the Banshees on its tail, their own Hornet flew over in response.

_"I read you Viper Four, moving in to assist."_ The Hornet sped up yet again, chasing the closest Banshee. The vehicles were raining plasma on the Hornet ahead of them and the marines on board were trying to keep them at bay with their rifles. When their own pilot was satisfied, she let loose on the machine guns and the Banshee in front of them exploded, torn to pieces by the gun. The other one banked away and their Hornet twisted to follow it.

The Banshee had a good pilot, weaving in and out of the many streets, through factory lots and over parks. Viper Two was better however, keeping tight on the hostiles trail, for all the good it did, Schaeffer fired at the enemy vehicle whenever he had a chance, though the effect was minimal. Even when he did get a shot off, they were flying far too fast and the rain was slamming into his face so hard that it felt like they were throwing pebbles at him.

The Hornet blasted off with her guns and the Banshee barely manage to evade the full blast. The wing wasn't so lucky and the vehicle shuddered before spinning out of control before smashing into the third floor of an old factory. The windows exploded outward in blue and purple plasma, putting an end to the Banshee. He heard Red cheering from the other side, but was cut off when the Hornet made a sharp turn and sped back towards the convoy. Less plasma and more tracers were filling the sky, so that was probably a good sign.

The convoy had managed to begin moving again, and the Scorpions and Warthogs tore up the surrounding city as they moved, almost every building seemed to have plasma flying out of the windows. On the ground, the rain was at flood conditions and water poured down the slightly sloped road and towards the tunnel, steam flew up where plasma hit. Covenant transports landed on top of buildings and back streets, or in front of the convoy. The alien infantry attempting to grind the convoy to a halt yet again, the convoy moved around any lost vehicles and kept going. Not bothering to save those who crashed.

Schaeffer glanced behind him and saw Covenant vehicles moving in after the convoy, sleek and purple with a turret poking out the top. Schaeffer decided to call them Specters as he raised his rifle and fired at the gunners, the Hornet spun around and fired a salvo of rockets, destroying two of them which were quickly replaced by three more.

_"I can see the fucking entrance! GO GO GO!"_ Someone screamed into the radio, Schaeffer prayed they would be leaving soon. Covenant were swarming out of buildings, latching on to vehicles as they sped by. Some of them managed to get holds, some were splattered on the side of the road, some simply fired as they went by. Schaeffer spotted a Squid land on the shield of a Warthog and claw his way up, grabbing the gunner by the shoulders and throwing him off like a toy before stomping his foot down on the drivers head. In the head of the formation, one of the Scorpions had seven or so Squats banging on the hull.

A building crumbled and collapsed as a Scorpion fired into it, the rubble smashing against the road. The Scorpions piled on through however, bee lining for the large entrances of the tunnels out of the city. Schaeffer could see emergency lights all along the tunnel and the shattered remains of some Warthogs and Scorpions, along with police barricades and sandbag walls. The convoy tore through all of them as they approached, speeding out of the area.

_"This is Viper Actual, the Scorpions are almost at the tunnel. Bug out to the rendezvous, move!"_ Schaeffer kept firing at the aliens as they sped past, the pilot speeding up in order to get out of the area as soon as possible. Plasma was flying up at them now, the convoy was beginning to enter the tunnel.

A trio of Banshees came up behind them, screeching as they did so. They slowly overcame the Hornets and began firing off their plasma cannons, Schaeffer fired a shot of his DMR before raising his arms over his head and cowering in fear. He heard the plasma hit the Hornet, the screeching of metal.

_"Oh fuck me, I'm hit. I'm hit, I don't think I can hold her!"_ The pilot's voice wasn't louder than the others screaming into the radio, but Schaeffer heard it clearly above every other. Another barrage of fire and the Hornet shook, Schaeffer looked up and saw the rotor was melted away, only two of the four blades still attached. The Hornet sway slightly and then there was a pop, the vehicle began to spin.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no." He said, the ground getting closer and closer. The pilot steered them towards the tunnel, the last of the convoy moving inside, followed by the sprinting marines. Schaeffer's ear buds tore out of his head as they spun, the swirling green in his goggles making him want to throw up. He dragged down his balaclava and did exactly that as the pilot shouted that she was going to hit the ground.

A voice in the radio shouted that the blast doors were going to be shut soon, the last marines running inside the tunnels and hoping to block off the Covenant. The Hornet continued to spin towards it, Schaeffer prayed. He prayed and prayed but could only think of the bodies piled at the lot. When he looked up, the cockpit was bathed in red from the warning lights and smoke was billowing from the back of the twisted metal. The vehicle slammed into the side of a building and embedded itself in the wall. Schaeffer screamed the whole way.

A moment later and he opened his eyes. The Hornet had stuck itself and he was dangling half a story from the ground. He heard a scratching noise and Red slid out from the back of the Hornet before landing on the sidewalk with an oomph. The pilot crawled from her broken cockpit and did the same. They were a hundred feet from the doors.

Schaeffer found his dagger and sliced through the cord connecting him to the hornet, he yelped as he hit the ground a second later, landing on top of his rifle with the harness still tied around him. Red and the pilot had already taken off and Schaeffer found his feet and followed, tearing off his ruined goggles. The doors were slowly closing now and Schaeffer begged god to not let him be locked out with the Covenant.

Marines had set up behind the closing doors and were firing at the approaching Covenant, their forms lit up by their muzzle flashes as they took cover with the moving door. The pilot screamed as plasma flew out and caught her in the back, Schaeffer hopped over her squirming body and ignored her cries for help. The doors were almost closed...

The air left his lungs as he tripped and fell inside the tunnel, the lights of the city being blocked out as the door sealed. He looked up, trying to catch his breath and only saw the deep reds of the emergency lights. The marines tried to help him up.


End file.
